[TW MAFIA] Western Chronicles

[Voth]

I think the math adds up with a mass role claim. The point is not that we have to elect the strongest power roles, the point is to elect the roles that are definitely town. Getting town ahold of both of those roles gives a huge advantage. Nothing will be confirmed of course but with a role claim, especially an orderly one will allow a one by one claim. We will be able to look at what?s claimed and counterclaimed. If anything is counterclaimed we know that we can?t select either of them. If one dies during the night we kill the other. After that we look at the game and the claims and we piece together a balanced game. Goofy ass roles that seem like they wouldn?t fit the game get scrutinized.

Orderly or not, what is the difference? How many people will claim they are a Cop? Then we go down the rabbit hole of determining their sanity. And that is just one of many possible issues. It is a terrible idea.

It is cute that you want to try to try to deflect suspicion on to me, but I would have to be a really bad scum player to pull what I just did.

[Zeebu]

Orderly means that mafia constantly have to work together to make their false claims work together while taking the actual town claims into consideration. They have to re-evaluate every claim. All town has to do is tell the truth, mafia has to make a claim that no one else has (or counterclaim) or make a claim that seems so oddball it stands out.

[Zeebu]

Orderly is wayyyy better for town

[Zeebu]

Back to your claim, why would a commuter need the bodyguards immunity?

[Zeebu]

I?m really interested to hear exalts take on an orderly mass role claim. I think this setup could take advantage of it.

I would ask field to let to let it be known if he inserted safe claims after the fact to prevent a mass claim. Unless they were added from the start of course, then game on. I only ask for us to be informed if something like safe claims were added after the game started.

[Zeebu]

Also look at me past games, I?m really going against my normal strategy if I?m doing this from a scum perspective. He?ll the game before my afk mafia godfather role I also tried to abuse the ?flavor? aspect in order to prove it town.

[Zeebu]

In order to prove I was town*

[Zeebu]

Ha, forgot. Hey voth, remember that time I called you out on being 3rd party right away and then you were. I pegged you as a cult leader, sure. But you were 3rd party, so I?ll take it. Paul being a role cop never came into play since we never got a result from that guy

[Voth]

Back to your claim, why would a commuter need the bodyguards immunity?

I do not need it. I just do not want it to fall into scum hands.

Like I said before, it would be great if we could elect two high powered town roles. That is not likely by shooting blind from the hip, and having town powers claim right now is idiotic.

[Voth]

Ha, forgot. Hey voth, remember that time I called you out on being 3rd party right away and then you were. I pegged you as a cult leader, sure. But you were 3rd party, so I?ll take it. Paul being a role cop never came into play since we never got a result from that guy

What does this have to do with this Mafia game? You are flailing right now Zeebu. Your orderly claim makes no sense.

Say two people claim town cop. P1 says he investigated voth and got guilty. Voth is lynched and flips town. P1 says oh boy, I guess I am the insane cop. Now what? He could be, could he not? So what do we do then? Lynch the next day based on P2 investigation? Or lynch based off P1 investigation knowing he is insane if he is actually a cop? What if P2 is the scum claim Cop and we just lynch another townie? Two townies down to vett one claim? We will not last long at that rate.

It is absolutely absurd. We could spend multiple day phases verifying one single role claim. The only reason you would want this is if you are scum, sorry.

[ixt]

Let us all flail like fishies!~~~

[fiS]

We're getting nowhere when everyone is voting him/herself.

[fiS]

Who would you all be lynching? Tell us what we get if we vote you. Who would you incarcarnate (yes, too early to say...), who is scum for you (also early, but there will be a day 1 lynch...)?

I don't think that a powerful role must become Mayor or Marshall. It makes them evem more valuable. Rather think of the possibility of enlarging the group of powerroles and spreading them out.

[Exalt]

I?m really interested to hear exalts take on an orderly mass role claim. I think this setup could take advantage of it.

I would ask field to let to let it be known if he inserted safe claims after the fact to prevent a mass claim. Unless they were added from the start of course, then game on. I only ask for us to be informed if something like safe claims were added after the game started.

I doubt there were safeclaims given out without it being a Theme game, but I guess it's possible

As for my opinion, I'm against a mass claim by default, because it's game-breaking for a lot of setups, same as I am against town talking to each other in PMs like last game (every TW mafia game really). Town PMing each other without the specific PR ability to do can fundamentally screw the game up, same as a Mass Roleclaim does. It just leads to follow the leader/secret town block to victory in every game. I don't think people will ever stop PMing each other, but mass roleclaims to break the setup along with that just feels cheap to me. Its not really fun if the game is too easy imo.

Also, I don't even think it's even needed to break the game here. If you really want to break it in half, Follow the Cop is likely the optimal strategy, because a doctor isn't even needed if the cop gets Mayor/Marshall, and the only thing to stop that strategy from working would be some very specific scum roles, along with town not having very specific roles. If a cop gets Marshall or Mayor, scum would have no choice but to pray they hit the bodyguard before the cop does too much damage, and even then, there could also be a doctor around that makes the game essentially unwinnable for them. The only way to balance it is if scum have multiple investigation-immunity roles, a roleblocker, and/or some kind of role that helps them find the bodyguard/doctor quickly, such as role cop. I can't think of any other way to balance it, and even that seems really iffy if the scum team isn't stacked with great players.

This all being said, the more I think about this setup, the more I think scum really could have a stacked roster, because it may be essential to balancing the game in this scenario. If they do, then people like WillBy would likely be scum, and him fake claiming an investigator role (while saying its not a claim at all) is the optimal strategy for scum-WillBy to make. Paul voting for him without question while highlighting that non-claim would be optimal for scum-Paul. What I also wonder about is what exactly Field told WillBy when he got help in reviewing the setup. WillBy couldn't actually review it without already knowing the setup/roles, so scum-WillBy would already know the optimal strategy here, along with what he can and cannot get away with. He'd be able to tell his teammates what claims are safe to make and what aren't. Otherwise, how could WillBy help Field balance the game if he doesn't know what roles are in it? Also, scum-WillBy would know that Follow the Cop is the optimal strategy here, so of course he would very subtly claim an investigative role while saying it isn't a claim at all to cover his ass later, all in an attempt to get Marshall/Mayor. From my estimation, it's likely the only way scum can win actually.

As for other players, Undercut claiming Town Roleblocker is fishy as hell, because scum 100% have to have one to balance the setup, while town are much more likely to not for the same reasons. It's pretty common for Mafia Roleblockers to fake claim Town Roleblockers, and based on the setup limitations, it's likely there is no Town Roleblocker at all. WillBy probably knows though, and if he is scum with Undercut, why wouldn't he tell him to claim Town Roleblocker here? It makes way too much sense not to.Frankly, the only role I half believe of the three right now is Voth, surprising as that is, but also with the mindset that he is just as likely to be third-party than town. I don't think scum-Voth makes that shitty claim there, because there's zero benefit to claiming Town Commuter in almost any scenario. It's a meme-claim really. It's also consistent with my idea of how this game would have to be balanced for it to not be completely one-sided.

So to recap, Follow the Cop is such a game-breaking strategy that any modded game is essentially first reviewed by looking at the setup and asking if 'Follow the Cop' will break the game. If so, then that setup is broken, and scum absolutely have to have very specific roles (roleblocker, role cop, Godfather, Ninja, Framer, etc) to counteract it, while town need to be balanced by removing things like Town Roleblocker from their side. Since the Marshall/Mayor essentially get bulletproof among a ton of other benefits, if a town cop gets one of those roles, that's basically game over on Day 1 without an extremely detailed balancing act in terms of roles and maybe even players on each side. You don't even need a town doctor to protect the cop if that cop gets Marshall/Mayor, and with an extra vote or jailkeeper ability, plus the age-old TW tactic of town all PMing each other, there's basically no way to balance the game without town being severely gimped and scum being extremely strong. It's the only scenario that makes sense to me when I think like the host would.

If you guys want more info, here's the mafia wiki about this strategy. Keep in mind, this is for regular games, not for ones with a Marshall/Mayor mechanic that heavily tips the balance into town's hands already, assuming a town cop gets one of the two:

"FOLLOW THE COP: A strategy or habit of reliance on investigative results in finding scum, rather than analyzing/playing the Day Game. This occurs when decisive investigative roles (usually Cops) cannot be easily killed (or killed at all) by the Mafia, usually due to the presence of a Doctor or Bulletproof ability.

To illustrate how this works, consider a setup where it is known (or correctly expected) that a Cop and a Doctor are in the game. The Cop claims immediately, and the Town votes No Lynch while the Doctor stays hidden. The Cop will get a result overnight, the hidden Doctor will protect the Cop, and the Mafia is powerless to stop it without first finding and killing the Doctor at Night. The Town will continue to No Lynch unless the Cop comes forward with a guilty result, which will then be lynched. However, by the time the Doctor is killed by the Mafia the Town should have enough reads from the Cop to finish the rest of the game via process of elimination.

This strategy is optimal for Town and can shift many "basic" setups inexorably in Town's favor regardless of the skill of the players, particularly in Open Games where it is known in advance that a Doctor is in the setup. The optimal strategy for the Mafia is to counterclaim Cop and hope that they can get the real Cop lynched OR confuse the Doctor into protecting the false Cop while killing the real Cop at Night. Either way, the Mafia is guaranteed to sacrifice at least one member.

Some methods of avoiding this trope in setup design (roughly in order of effectiveness) include:

• Mafia-side roles that break the interdependence of the Cop and Doctor, such as Roleblocker or a Strongman/piercing kill
• Town-side roles that do not allow for the Cop to be invincible, such as making the Cop Macho or replacing the Doctor with a Jailer
• Removing the certainty that there will be an investigative role or protective role in the setup (though they may both still be in the game according to the mod's discretion)
• Mafia-side roles that allow them to find the Doctor more easily, such as Role Cop or Tracker
• Roles that investigate incorrectly, such as Miller and Godfather
• Changing the sanity of the Cop (though this is questionable from a balance perspective)"

Also:


"BREAKING STRATEGY: A breaking strategy (also known as gaming the system) is one that has been found to be objectively superior to any other strategy, often due to some flaw in the design or balance of the game, and typically resulting in one side having an insurmountable advantage once executed. Since they work better than any other strategy, there is no reason not to use them every time, and so gameplay becomes dull for both sides.

The classic example of a breaking strategy is Follow the Cop, where a known investigator and a hidden protector combine to produce a string of results. If this happens the scum must either counterclaim the investigator or kill the protector, the former guaranteeing loss of a member, and the latter being difficult and impractical. These two strategies then become the only viable strategies if the setup is known or correctly expected, the metagame suffers, and town wins the majority of the time.


As you can see, Follow the Cop is the optimal strategy without severely balancing against it. I read somewhere before that in a normal 9 player setup with 6-7 town (1 Cop, 1 Doc, rest VTs) and 2-3 scum, scum have only a 1 in 24 chance of winning the game, and that's only if they play perfectly. This requires them to find and kill the Doctor on Night 1, otherwise the win % is near zero. This scales up obviously with more players and Town PRs. Add in the Mayor/Marshall roles with all their benefits, and you can consider this game a loss for scum immediately if a Town Cop gets one of those roles unless the scum team has very specific balancing roles, is stacked full of experienced players, and/or town doesn't have roles like Roleblocker/Cop at all (or has multiple and some are paranoid or insane, etc). Basically, I'm gonna call bullshit on at least one of Undercut and WillBy here based on game balance. Imo, at least one of the are probably scum.

[Voth]

If it were me at this point, I would have my sights set on zeebu and ixt. Zeebu is really trying to justify his call for a mass role claim, but I fail to see how it does anything but set town back massively, orderly or not. It screams scum to me.

Ixt has come out with a completely different playing style suddenly, which makes me suspicious. He began the game with his typical erratic behavior and spam posting, but has since quickly reigned that in. Which makes me wonder if he got spanked by his scum buddies for being too vocal. He is also making it clear he wants nothing to do with the elected roles, and while in and of itself does not mean much, it seems to me that he is trying to blend in more this game than the prior two, which makes me suspicious of him being scum.

No one else has given me an overly scummy vibe beyond them, but it is still early and plenty of banter will take place between now and when someone eventually has to make a decision.