WW47: Small Mafia Shenanigans

[Meiz]

So the question is from where to begin. It's ok to lynch one innocent and one wolf days 1 and 2, and if it's possible to strike in a way that guarantees one wolf and sacrifices one innocent we should take it, following balance is a very good strategy. However between the different team possibilities I don't see a guaranteed way so we'd be taking a gamble and even though most of the town seems to have cleared me there are some lingering suspicions, so I'd be happy to back Meiz as someone I and most of the others seem to trust rather than lead/join a lynch independently.

Remember this is a learning game as well and just following someone blindly doesn't get you far. Making an independent read also helps others to read your role better. Even if you agree with something, try to write your own take on the case instead of just following along.

[Alhambram]

A list of players seems to be popular now, alright give it a try:

TOWNIE:

Nobody

UNSURE:

Kaiser: I am not seeing something strange from him till now, discussing roles was helpful for me too. Altough Meiz did point out about wolf eager discussing other than putting pressure at players, I got feeling that Kaiser is genuinely about discussing roles. Though a question for him: his vote for warriorknight was based upon prodding at first 24 hours. Now prodding period is over and do Kaiser still stand with his vote or has he changed mind?

El Grillo: His questionnare still seems fishy for me and he is currently pushing hard for Thrawn which is justified due Thrawn flip flopping whole time, more of Thrawn later.

Meiz: His questioning players help reveal some information, but this is also one of way to hide for a wolf behind a tough cop attitude.

Pindicator: Almost put him at Townie, but his reasoning for voting Amicalola don't make sense for me (voting for him because he argee with player who he did vote before). Do you still stand at vote for Amicalola or did recent posts change your mind?

Warriorknight: Few posts in beginning, but slowly more prodding others, still sitting on fence here.

T-Hawk: I am willing to chalk his writing style for now as reason why he do seem supicious for others, I don't see reason yet to supsect him.


SUPICIOUS:

Amicalola: Mainly due easy jumping upon me, at least he did take off his vote upon me. But it still lingers in my mind.

Thrawn: flip flopping votes whole time makes me hard to grasp your intentions. Also voted for no lynch twice, which is best outcome if you hypothetically have wofl power role.

[Amicalola]

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?

I actually liked it a lot. I agree to a certain extent that something is better than nothing, and also that wolves not posting would be a real problem. WarriorKnight's probably moved into my unsure list. 

Meanwhile, I feel right now that El Grillo, T-Hawk and Thrawn are the most suspicious. I agree with EG that Thrawn was being fairly hypocritical before with his "everyone needs to start voting" shtick. Meanwhile, El Grillo has been noticeably pushing on Thrawn at the expense of pushing on T-Hawk. They have also voted for Thrawn together now, at different times. If one of T-Hawk and El Grillo are wolves, this leads me to believe the other could be as well, and with both seeming suspicious, combined with El Grillo's ignoring T-Hawk earlier, I've just talked myself into thinking this is the case. 

For now, as T-Hawk's posts continue to be amongst the most neutral, and finding out his role also gives us valuable information (I believe) on El Grillo, I'm moving my vote to T-Hawk.

[Meiz]

El Grillo posts his overview (https://www.realmsbeyond.net/forums/show...#pid749741) and states:
"T-Hawk, you haven't said much of anything yet. You did say during pre-game setup that you'd be out on Sunday, but your two posts upon arrival leave me wanting more."

Now T-Hawk posts more and is starting to gather suspicion from multiple players. It's pretty clear from several players that they haven't liked the contribution so far.

And then El Grillo comes back into the thread to make a long accusation post against just one player thrawn. No comments on the hot potato, which I find suspicious in light of his earlier prod on T-Haw. I undestand he might be feeling strongly on the guilt of thrawn (though I don't see it as warranted), but that still shouldn't stop him from taking a larger overview on what's happening in the thread. Feels uncharasteristic. So I'm not getting a feeling El Grillo is actually interested in applying pressure for T-Hawk or see what the fuss is about, yet he is not taking a stance on if T-Hawk's contributions have been better either So that's my strongest suspect for a wolf pair.

[WarriorKnight]

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.

Kaiser, the reason I agreed with Meiz's opinion of roles is that Meiz is probably the most experienced WW player in this game, and role discussion is more factual than opinion. I doubt that with my inexperience with WW I know how to play power roles any better then he does, hence my deferral. I stand by my earlier opinion that general discussion on roles on Day 1 is not very productive, but let me know if you would like me to answer a specific question regarding a specific role.

I'm not sure if I have anything meaningful to contribute regarding possible wolf pairings at the moment, that seems like too much theorycrafting for me on Day 1. If I had to make a guess now I think 1 would be T-Hawk and the other would be Alhambram/Amicalola. Although Meiz's argument's about a T-Hawk/El Grillo pairing seems quite interesting to think about as well. For now I'm keeping my vote on T-Hawk, I can't say I'm particularly impressed by his defense and has yet to respond to Meiz's comments.

thrawn really strikes me as quite unconventional compared to everyone else in the game, I'm not sure if this is because it's his style or a reason to get suspicious, however I am currently leaning the former as his most recent posts do have some logic to them. Everyone not mentioned has similar rankings to my earlier list.

[Amicalola]

Alright everyone, I'm off to bed now (it's a shame about the timing of the day's end, but oh well). Just wanted to re-iterate my thoughts and where I'm leaving my vote for the day.

As I said earlier, I'm currently most suspicious of both T-Hawk and El Grillo, and I believe that if one of them is a wolf, the other is likely to be one also. Right now, I'm slightly more suspicious of T-Hawk, so that's where my vote is going to stay. I strongly believe an overall lynch of either of these two is the best move we can make. Hopefully there aren't any crazy twists that happen in the meantime!

[BRickAstley]

Tally as of post 119:

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

Voting history:

Kaiser

El Grillo

pindicator

pindicator

El Grillos

thrawn

thrawn

T-Hawk

Alhambram

no lynch

Alhambram

Amicalola

WarriorKnight

Alhambram

WarriorKnight

Roleblocker

Rolecop

Alhambram

pindicator

Amicalola

thrawn

pindicator

Amicalola

Amicalola

WarriorKnights

T-Hawk

T-Hawk

no lynch

El Grillo

Thrawn

T-Hawk

3 Hours and 35 Minutes Remaining.

[Kaiser]

2) Thrawn's going pindicator to no-lynch back to pindicator. Thrawn's play still seems inconsistent to me, last time I chatted with him he said he was still waiting for pindicator to answer his and Kaiser's question, which pindicator did in #52. Thrawn then voted 'no lynch' which could be interpreted either as being satisfied with pindicator's response, or just demonstrating the mechanic, and then takes a tangent to ask a question about cops roleclaiming before coming back to vote pindicator again in #75. His stated question to pindicator is asking for some reads, but pindicator already did that in #52, so it's not really a prod-for-discussion. If that were really thrawn's aim, why not direct it at someone like T-hawk, who had at the time actually given no reads?

Because I had an interesting question to ask and think that pindi should be quite ok to give us some opinion. As I already told you I am only investigating at the moment, and my vote does not represent an accusation. And btw pindicator I'd still like an answer to that question please. It will be my last question to you for today.

Yeah, like the thing you quoted - I already did give that.  So why double down?

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.

This is one of the interactions I mean with pindicator, checking post #52 actually shows that he does exactly one read on me and formulates it as a wolf hunting strategy to look for people coming up with own arguments.
While pindicators amusing answering is irritating me, he is not among the most suspicious for me. Surprisingly hee is actually just following the argument from El Grillo that he already answered with some reads. The argument is a stretch in my eyes as it is one read and I was myself still expecting more information from pindicator which we received in the meantime.

@pindicator: were you referring here to your post #52 as El Grillo mentioned or where you talking about (but not mentioning) other posts?

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.

El Grillo is another person whose way of writing sometimes itches my back. I cannot put the finger on it at the moment but I feel it when reading #44 , #47, [url=https://www.realmsbeyond.net/forums/showthread.php?tid=10140&pid=749741#pid749741]#83, [url=https://www.realmsbeyond.net/forums/showthread.php?tid=10140&pid=749859#pid749859]#108. [/url][/url]
Re-reading these right now it has to do something with the way he phrasing his questions. They actually are suspicions of his own but they feel so invasive like preparing the train of thought of everybody reading them.

It is difficult to understand why he is tunneling so heavy on thrawn, luckily he did not claim to my knowledge that he will jump around with his vote, because he has it on thrawn since #44

That being said, I follow most of his argument on thrawn:
- #75 I do not follow as I was waiting for more from pindi there myself
- #85 the Codenames reference is weird even though I actually remember reading it (without remembering if thrawn or Thawk were involved, it would be stupid if they would not be however, do I need to check this?)
- #86 I agree that the better play would have been for example precising the question or clearly stating what he expected from pindi
- #88 thrawn was sitting for most of day 1 on pindicator a bit on me and on no lynch so far. I do not see him leading with example here. This especially contradictionary as he explained in #46, #86,  that he is in investigative mode and plans to change his vote frequently.
- #93 here I disagree with El Grillo as I can understand that early in the day there was not too much to get a read on Alhambram besides his low participation and the jump on the El Grillo bus started by pindi. Noteworthy is that El Grillo started his questionaire to avoid people being judged on participation so it can only be on the bandwagon thing, which thrawn answered
- #94 feeling is a part of this game but the town Meiz feeling is completely without argument here. Thawk mentioned a town Meiz in #92 though

I am undecided on El Grillo, especially now that I can put my finger a bit better on the itch I felt when reading his posts before. I agree with most of the thrawn suspicion but do not follow why this is the only train he seems to be following/pushing, ignoring other players he even was suspicious to before.
We are now approaching the decision time, I am undecided on El Grillo and would like to get more feedback here from the rest of the town to establish a better opinion.

El Grillo. The questionnaire on it's own is ok, although it did divert a lot of time into talk that's not useful in the end. His accusation against me have been contrived from the start, but him being this incessant actually lowers my suspicion of him a bit because even though he can step back after me turning out to be village he would have drawn too much attention to himself. Btw, his one valid point is that I have been differently active and not following the standard accusation patterns but that's my style and I have my reasons for it. It would be stupid as scum to draw more attention for minor things that you can easily do the normal way especially in a first game when no one knows about your style yet.

What I am thinking is that we have two wolves trying to coordinate a mislynch.

So the question is from where to begin. It's ok to lynch one innocent and one wolf days 1 and 2, and if it's possible to strike in a way that guarantees one wolf and sacrifices one innocent we should take it, following balance is a very good strategy. However between the different team possibilities I don't see a guaranteed way so we'd be taking a gamble and even though most of the town seems to have cleared me there are some lingering suspicions, so I'd be happy to back Meiz as someone I and most of the others seem to trust rather than lead/join a lynch independently.

And since it seems to bother some people so much I'll say no lynch to take my vote off pindicator and add that I do not find him suspicious at the moment.

Thrawn, Mister Day and Night, Black and White, Wolf and Villager
I have laid out my opinion on most of El Grillo's case on thrawn above. But there were some more points:
- the vanilla villager claim (which I think has been overrated in some discussions)
- many posts with few content
- giving up on hunting when it is not pindicator by no lynching?
- has style and reasons for his playing behaviour, which are unknown at the moment #110
- wolf theory:
  - speaks about (#110) a guaranteed way of hitting a wolf on Day 1 or Day 2 sacrificing a villager. It would be very good if we can manage that but do not see that there is a guaranteed way to do so and failing that, we might be already at lylo (check my post #69) in my worst case scenario
  - it gets worse (#113) strategizing around El Grillo (Day 1 lynch), Thawk (Day 2 lynch) and then Alhambram and Amicalola afterwards depending on developments. I do not see the need to set the people up that much right now "and if both El Grillo and Thawk turn out village", we likely do not have many bad shots left anymore
  - On the other side he analyzies the possible Wolf teams (#116) which I like as an idea and I think we should do this right now. Naturally he focuses on his suspects which he mentioned above, this is a positive point for him as I feel he got this train of thought rolling.

I would like you to consider and lay out why you are thinking that the suspicion against you is "contrived"?
Why are you no lynching at the moment? What do you want to achieve with that?
How do you see your wolf lynch strategy in the light of a potential lylo on day 3?
Are you stating that you are so sure on either Thawk or El Grillo being a wolf that you would bank the game on it?
What are your reasons and style for your erratic/inconsistent behaviour so far?

Kaiser: Though a question for him: his vote for warriorknight was based upon prodding at first 24 hours. Now prodding period is over and do Kaiser still stand with his vote or has he changed mind?

He changed his participation from poking and hiding to show content and come out with opinions on his own. The vote stayed on him too long due to me being busy this morning and us overlapping in posts around bedtime over here.
I wrote the pindicator part from my phone quickly with angry wife eyes next to me

If anyone wants to actually accuse me properly please state: who would my possible teammates be and what's our plan - who are we angling to lynch today and what's our follow up plan for tomorrow? If all you have is a meaningless initial claim and play that's not standard that's far from sufficient. Check my game reports in the Master of Orion forum and you'll see that my play is as far from standard as you get.

I've voted EG but T-Hawk is high on my list too as you can see, so if the majority ends up I'll switch and please don't say flip flopping then because I have explained why. And if you see any fault with my reasoning please point it out, I'm always open to be convinced by a good argument.

As I said, I like you encouraging this train of thought, please answer my questions above nevertheless.
I will get into this, hopefully before the deadline but this lunch break is already quite extensive and I will have to leave latest 17:30 CEST tonight, so my time is quite short for extensive analysis

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.

Kaiser, the reason I agreed with Meiz's opinion of roles is that Meiz is probably the most experienced WW player in this game, and role discussion is more factual than opinion. I doubt that with my inexperience with WW I know how to play power roles any better then he does, hence my deferral. I stand by my earlier opinion that general discussion on roles on Day 1 is not very productive, but let me know if you would like me to answer a specific question regarding a specific role.

I'm not sure if I have anything meaningful to contribute regarding possible wolf pairings at the moment, that seems like too much theorycrafting for me on Day 1. If I had to make a guess now I think 1 would be T-Hawk and the other would be Alhambram/Amicalola. Although Meiz's argument's about a T-Hawk/El Grillo pairing seems quite interesting to think about as well. For now I'm keeping my vote on T-Hawk, I can't say I'm particularly impressed by his defense and has yet to respond to Meiz's comments.

thrawn really strikes me as quite unconventional compared to everyone else in the game, I'm not sure if this is because it's his style or a reason to get suspicious, however I am currently leaning the former as his most recent posts do have some logic to them. Everyone not mentioned has similar rankings to my earlier list.

Your crosspost was actually already good enough for me to decide to switch somewhere else, I just did not get around to execute it until now.
I would love to hear your take (and everyone others) on whom you would visit as a friendly neighbor tonight?

Some additional notes from my side:
Thawk is high on my list as well, but I also get the feeling that he is developing in a bandwagon target. What information would we get when lyniching him?

Meiz seems to be a heavy town favourite at the moment, I seem to be coming around more and more to that as well

Alhambram and Amicalola might be wolves trying to run under the radar, but I agree with the assessment that it there might be a experience difference in the wolf team and that it is better to catch the experienced/outspoken wolf first. (I think that came from thrawn)

[Kaiser]

Overlap, thrawn was lyniching El Grillo and changed to Thawk while I was posting.
Read the question more why were you no lynching at all?

[Meiz]

Alhambram, any updates on your current lynch preference?