Merlot Mafia: Last Queen of the Amazons

How would this in any way implicate me? Were the mafia picked based on their experience with the game? And how would you know what method was used to pick the mafia anyways?

It wouldn't - except for my point about it might be a tactic for diversion. :)

I only remember passingly referring to Townies twice... but... uh... are you suggesting that I shouldn't refer to myself as a townie? ... ? ... I would suggest that everyone refer to themselves as a Townie. As such I can't see how it casts any suspicion on anyone if they refer to them self as a Townie... it would be idiotic to refer to yourself as anything else even if you were mafia.

I would think that people that cast shadows of doubt by making ridiculous claims like, "If you call yourself a Townie then you are suspicious omg!" -- those people seem to be behaving oddly.. you know, randomly and flippantly raising suspicions. :p

Hahaha.. Okay - I can't debate this. :lol:
 
I see I have already been voted for by one person. I suppose it won't be the last vote I might get this round - which is regrettable, but expected. In that case, I will be the second innocent victim lynched. (And, since three is a charm - this is the last time I will proclaim my innocence - I think the point has been made clear enough by now. :))

Since I have yet to see anything that really arises my suspicion towards someone specific, I will continue my former round vote.

As such - I Vote : Abstain
 
I don't really think voting for Caledorn will help anything. I'd rather not lynch another innocent, you know? So, I abstain.
 
At least you can say I had 'guts'.

Seriously, the second episode, on this sad occasion relating to my death, seems to feature some obscure clues. But they may not be clues.

But it is unsure if Winston,as narrator is adding clues or is simply telling the story of a random mafia killer.

I would look for clarity on whether there are clues or not in the story.
 
Never played this before but am thinking the townies need to actually vote and over the rounds discrepancies may be accounted for. So with that, I'd encourage the townies to vote for people who don't vote, so that some reliable base of players form.

So I'll vote for an abstainer.

vote: landlubber
 
Fine, if you want me to not abstain, then I'll vote Celedorn. But, if we lynch another townie, than we're in trouble.
 
Never played this before but am thinking the townies need to actually vote and over the rounds discrepancies may be accounted for. So with that, I'd encourage the townies to vote for people who don't vote, so that some reliable base of players form.

So I'll vote for an abstainer.

vote: landlubber

I think the logic presented earlier, where there is more suspicion on the people who vote for someone early, is more coherent with the fact that the Mafia would want to kill townies during daytime as well as nighttime. The logic of voting for someone who abstains does not make sense to me - unless you figure that a Mafia would use abstaining as a diversion tactic?

Fine, if you want me to not abstain, then I'll vote Caledorn. But, if we lynch another townie, than we're in trouble.

Indeed we are in trouble if we lynch another townie - which is why I have chosen to abstain.
 
unvote: landlubber

vote: Tegvtec


Then how is the Mafia killed? Intuition? Abstaining leaves no record. Only leaves the lucky for a more likely guess. If groups of people are selected and then votes are spread evenly at least there is record so that as people get killed off the remaining have the chance to possibly "trace" that one vote that isn't being counted.

And so those that don't follow (it would be in the mafia's interest not to follow this) I will vote for. Which is my point, to vote people up for selection in hopes that they may be traced later. What are we down to eight? Let's pick 4 people and give them 2 votes each.
 
No, let's pick 2 people and give them 4 votes each.

What are the chances that we get 100% voter turn out AND consensus for this idea?

To the people that are abstaining: what is your long term goal? What do you hope to see happen whereby you will feel comfortable voting for someone? I genuinely want to know because I have no idea who to vote for, but I believe that doing nothing is worse then doing anything.

Look at it this way - if we all sit around abstaining then each night the mafia picks another townie off. At least if we vote there is a chance we can kill them before they kill us. Abstaining leaves us no chance - eventually all the townies will be dead.

The only solid reason I can see for abstaining is that silence raises less suspicion. Since the mafia don't have to worry about being killed by the mafia the only people that benefit from abstaining are mafia -- they are guaranteed not to die. So anyone that has thought it through (unless they are mafia) should not abstain.

Besides that, I want to hear more crack pot theories before I cast my vote. And abstainers don't tend to have good posts with good reasons. :)
 
What are the chances that we get 100% voter turn out AND consensus for this idea?

100% turnout expected. Non-conformity by a single person raises suspicion of mafia and that person would be voted off the following round. If more people don't abide then the system fails as the voting gets screwed, although suspicion gets focused to those people.
 
To the people that are abstaining: what is your long term goal? What do you hope to see happen whereby you will feel comfortable voting for someone? I genuinely want to know because I have no idea who to vote for, but I believe that doing nothing is worse then doing anything.

((Passing one day is beneficial, after that the townies must get someone every day. But how come passing is good? It's because there is now one redundant townie, whose only effect is to act as one extra decoy for the mafia to hide along.))

From the personal notes of princess Tic0:

Oh, this voting nonsense is so bad. The eldest among us should've just taken the throne and executed whoever she did not trust. What if she were the murderer? Bah, in that case it was not a murder, just the way fate was to play out. But alas, I let's see if this "voting" could be made to work.

The more princesses there are alive in total, the less likely it is that a random ((the votes are more or less random, you are not playing against some poor AIs where you can after a while go "ah, that guy is obvious mafia" - they can and will hide efficiently)) person is a murderer. So, one less princess alive equals more likely guessing correctly.

Also, assume that in case of a tie we decide to either kill both votees or neither. That means that the murderers can effectively block any daytime vote when number of loyals and murderers is a tie and then get the majority during the night. So, 2 loyals vs 2 murderers at start of day is practically equal to 1v2. The same applies to 3v3, 4v4, 5v5, 6v6, 7v7 etc. Whatever margin the loyal princesses have over the murderers, a wrong guess brings it down by 2 and a correct one only maintains the margin, it does not improve it! Not voting means the margin is brought down by 1, which is fine if the margin was even, as there is no chance in number of days left to catch them, but improves accuracy of guesses. Thus the advantage in numbers should be odd, not even, to have less targets and more chance of success.

That means in plain Amazonian: one princess is redundant if there is an even number of them. Get rid of her!

Therefore as long as there is an even number of us, we should not vote at all, unless someone goes ahead and votes. In that case, all the remaining princesses should vote for the person who voted first that day. Let's see who would dare to vote on a day like that, hah!

((Of course now that there has already been votes, people should be given reasonable amount of time to withdraw them before proceeding.))

((FYI: I use this format as OOC.))
 
I'm not sure I understand what you're saying in your post, Tic0.. Is it beneficial to vote or to abstain at this point? You start your post by saying the townies must get someone on every turn after the first, but then I'm not able to catch the meaning of the rest of your post, as it seems to encourage abstaining if there is an even number ... Could you please clarify? :)
 
100% turnout expected. Non-conformity by a single person raises suspicion of mafia and that person would be voted off the following round. If more people don't abide then the system fails as the voting gets screwed, although suspicion gets focused to those people.

I personally don't think its reasonable to create a system whereby you always expect 100% voter turn out and immediately look to assassinate anyone that doesn't vote. As I don't see unanimous agreement (or anyone else on board) with this idea I will assume that this is not what we are doing.

((Passing one day is beneficial, after that the townies must get someone every day. But how come passing is good? It's because there is now one redundant townie, whose only effect is to act as one extra decoy for the mafia to hide along.))

To make this clearer lets hypothetically say there are 2 mafia amongst us. Right now the ratio is 6 v. 2 (6 townies, 2 mafia). If we just guess we have a 25% chance of killing a mafia. They have a 100% chance of killing a townie.

Abstain: Lets say we abstain. Tomorrow the ratio will be 5 v. 2. We will have a 28.5% chance of killing a mafia (if we are just guessing). We have improved our chances by 3.5%. If we agreed to always vote at this point and forward we would be permitted to make 1 more mistake on any day in the future.

Vote - Wrong: Now, lets say we didn't abstain. And lets say we (unfortunately) picked an innocent. Tomorrow the ratio will be 4v2. Tomorrow we will have a 33% chance of killing the mafia by guessing. We would be in a situation where we reasonably improve our odds. We wouldn't be able to make any mistakes in our voting or else the mafia would win. However we would be dealing with the best possible percentage for guessing success.

Vote - Correct: Now here is something that you have to consider - what if we vote and we vote correctly???!? All would-be-detectives aside this is a game that requires some luck (particularly in the early game). The window for exercising your vote closes quickly, but while we have it we can potentially get lucky. There is a 33% chance we get a mafia tonight so just based on blind voting. Then we are in a much better situation.

Conclusion: The thing you aren't taking into account is that if we vote 2 days in a row we have a greater likelyhood of killing a mafia then if we vote 1 day only. Think of it this way - the more times you deal yourself in poker the greater the chance that you get a pocket pair.

By voting every single time we can we increase the chance that one of our votes will be correct. By voting 2 days in a row we have a 61.5% chance of killing a mafia on one of those 2 days. By abstaining, at best, you have a 33% chance of killing a mafia.

Because of this we need to vote as often as we can!

Variations: What if there are more then 2 mafia? That only means we can make less mistakes. The truth that the more you vote the more likely you are to kill a mafia still remains.

The Trump Card Argument All this theory aside, the fact is that some people are voting regardless of whether you abstain or not. So to abstain at this point makes it look like you are just trying to remain "under the radar" - which casts suspicion on you.
 
Right - after reading what you've written there Ash, I will not abstain after all.

Unvote: Abstain
Vote : Tegvtec

(The reasoning behind my vote is that Tegvtec has only posted one single post about a magic 8-ball, and has not joined these discussions at all. Yes, I am actually voting based on the grounds that the person is curiously quiet.)
 
Midday 2 - Learning Curve

In the wake of the morning's gruesome discovery, the Princesses set about their task with renewed vigor. Clearly, it was not enough to simply sit around and wait for the killer to reveal herself. With the previously silent Princess Slaze now jumping into the debate, and with a rising tide of anti-abstentionism amongst the group, there seemed to be a greater sense of decisiveness about the morning's debate. Nevertheless, the Princesses were still slow in casting their accusations, and by the time they sat down for lunch, only half of them had stepped up, leaving Princess Caledorn and Princess Tegvtec as the group's leading suspects.

Tally
Caledorn - 2 (landlubber, Tboy)
Tegvtec - 2 (slaze, Caledorn)

Night will fall in roughly 25 hours.
 
For better or worse I'm going to post on what I am thinking about everyone. It will give people a chance to respond if they want to, or for others to chime in. At the end of it I will vote. I have used a colour system for very suspicious, mildly suspicious, or unknown.

Slaze: His idea of voting for people based solely on activity level under the guise of solidifying an active player base seems ill-conceived. Who cares that the players are active if they are active mafia? This is a simple and glaringly obvious point. I would have dismissed it but I know slaze from his work on these forums and he is a smart guy. I don't see him making such an obvious tactical error.

Slaze was inactive here but active elsewhere on the forums; he was purposefully inactive. Someone called him on it and suddenly he became active. He felt the need to change his posting habits based on feedback on this forum.

Slaze voted for landlubber and then unvoted him under the idea that he became "active." With the mafia actively working together this could have easily been a diversion. "Hey, landlubber, I'm going to vote with you because you are inactive, then you become active, then I will change my vote." His vote for landlubber seems particularly odd as there were people less active at the time he voted for landlubber.

So this is also a strategic vote: if Slaze is mafia then I would be inclined to believe that landlubber is mafia. (If slaze is innocent it says nothing about landlubber).

In a way this vote bites me in the rear because slaze has said his voting strategy is to vote for less active players - so I personally wouldn't be voted out by slaze as long as he stuck with this. That said, I feel that the mafia is going to take me out sooner then later because I talk too much. ;)

Caledorn: Did he unwittingly become the center of attention? Or is he mafia trying to throw off the trail? The biggest point for his innocence is that I can see myself exasperated in the same way if people were voting for me. The biggest point towards his guilt is that after I purposefully told him he wasn't on my radar his posts to me became ridiculously agreeable (when compared to his previous argument, and far more so then you expect on an internet forum). That said, I'm curious about what he is going to say now ;)

Caledorn also voted for Hercules90, and although Hercules90 survived he was killed that night by the mafia. This is more likely to indicate Caledorn is not mafia; the mafia picked Hercules90 to raise suspicion on Caledorn. Caledorn if a mafia is not likely to pick the same person both in the day and night as that seems like a tactical error.

mgsmuhammad: He has posted a half dozen times, and every single one of his posts has been frivolous - no content, no questions, no theories, nothing to add to the discussion - except one where he wondered about the number of mafia and suspected it was 2 total. The only reason I don't suspect him is because of that mafia post - he was the first one to bring up the number of mafia and come to a reasonable conclusion. If he was mafia this wouldn't have been a good thing to bring to our attention. Granted, he could have done this intentionally to throw us off the track, but the question was so out of the blue and early in the game that I am inclined to believe it was genuine.

landlubber: Not at all on my radar unless Slaze is found to be mafia, even though I voted for him yesterday (sorry landlubber!).

Tboy: Took the time to post about how slaze was busy elsewhere to explain his lack of activity - so if Tboy is found to be mafia then slaze is more likely (and vice versa). He voted for Caledorn because of his odd behaviour, which is reasonable but if Caledorn is found to be innocent then it casts suspicion on TBoy (and, by extension, Slaze). He also voted to kill Tic0 - an innocent.

Tegvtec: He has only posted twice. He has given absolutely no content in those posts... That said, he hasn't really posted elsewhere in the Team Merlot threads either, and on May 10th, in an unrelated (non-mafia) thread he mentioned he was being slammed with work. Still, that was May 10th - has he been busy all this time? As the most inactive person in our thread Is he a casual/busy player or trying to stay under the radar?

Umarth: First drew attention to slazes inactivity so if Slaze is innocent then I suspect Umarth. He voted for Tic0 because he "didn't like the sound of a stalemate" (not sure why he would care one way or the other as we had no idea what a stalemate would mean at that point).

Ash88: Sure, I will include myself... because if I don't it looks suspicous ;). I voted for landlubber after Tic0 last turn. Tic0 later changed his vote, but having no preference at that point I just stayed with landlubber. If landlubber is found to be innocent I suppose it casts some doubt on me - but does it really? I mean, I was voting with Tic0 (who is a confirmed innocent) and didn't change my vote which would obviously fail afterwards. So either I'm innocent or I figured that all out with the intent to use it by drawing attention to it in the future and become less suspected. Besides that I'm really chatty in this thread - which can be construed either way. So I leave it to the mob to decide.

Conclusion:

Vote: Slaze

A vote for slaze helps figure this out whether or not he is innocent. There are a number of ties back to slaze, so if he is innocent then I know who to suspect, and if he is guilty I know who to suspect. It seems like the best strategy. If you are innocent - slaze - I apologize beforehand, but I need to know what you are!

Of course my vote will be for nothing unless a few other people see the merit in this.

I'm curious to see whose posting and interaction is different as a result of this post. Of course, but pointing out that I'm interested in it it is more likely that the mafia will retain similar personality. But by saying that maybe they won't? Or will they?

If the mafia kills me on their next night does that mean that I am hitting on something? Or not?

<insert dramtic music>
 
Slaze: His idea of voting for people based solely on activity level under the guise of solidifying an active player base seems ill-conceived. Who cares that the players are active if they are active mafia? This is a simple and glaringly obvious point. I would have dismissed it but I know slaze from his work on these forums and he is a smart guy. I don't see him making such an obvious tactical error.

You realized that I've figured it out, haven't you, and that it is absolutely critical that everybody agrees to the plan I have prescribed. Anything else is a crapshot, where if all follow me then the mafia, so long as there is only one, can be pinpointed with absolute certainty.

if all 8 of us vote spilt among two people, we will kill a townie, but then the people that voted for the deceased townie will be proven to be townies and the mafia will then be one of the four not voting for the deceased. In the next round those four will be separated to vote for differing people and with the results of that the potential mafia group can be narrowed some more. By the end the mafia can be narrowed to a single person. But it's critical that we start this as soon as possible, another round wasted and we won't have enough rounds to single out the mafia.

And again, it would be in the mafia's interest to pursuade people against this...
 
Caledorn: Did he unwittingly become the center of attention? Or is he mafia trying to throw off the trail? The biggest point for his innocence is that I can see myself exasperated in the same way if people were voting for me. The biggest point towards his guilt is that after I purposefully told him he wasn't on my radar his posts to me became ridiculously agreeable (when compared to his previous argument, and far more so then you expect on an internet forum). That said, I'm curious about what he is going to say now ;)

Caledorn also voted for Hercules90, and although Hercules90 survived he was killed that night by the mafia. This is more likely to indicate Caledorn is not mafia; the mafia picked Hercules90 to raise suspicion on Caledorn. Caledorn if a mafia is not likely to pick the same person both in the day and night as that seems like a tactical error.

I just have to say I really love this game so far! :D

I haven't mentioned this earlier, but this is the first time I'm involved in a mafia/werewolf-style game myself - which is the very reason why I was so quiet until I suddenly got an accusation out of nowhere. I wanted to observe how the more experienced players played the game out before making any moves. Your point about becoming exasperated as a result of that is quite spot on as to why I have posted the way I have. Now - neither you, nor anyone else, have any way to confirm my claims here except to vote for me lynched - which, I can assure you, will be a bad decision, since it means the Townies will be doing the job of the Mafia yet again. However, I expect it coming, since I have rather clumsily posted the things I have without thinking it through well enough - my mistake. :)

When you told me - purposefully as you say - that I am not on your radar, I did not start to agree with your posts because of that. The reason I have agreed with your posts is the fact that your arguments are sound and reasonable, and I really don't have any counter-arguments to what you have said. One question in that regards is - if you were in my shoes, what would you have replied to your own replies to my posts? :) Hopefully this satisfies your curiousity. ;)

Please, though, note the fact that I did not vote for Hercules in the former round - I abstained (Me saying this probably does not help on your suspicion, as this actually lessened your suspicion - but perhaps you and others here can at least see that even though you actually gave me credit for something that would remove suspicion from me, I'm still honest enough to point out that this is not the case - a fact that I hope speaks in my favour). There was nothing to put any suspicion on her, or anyone else, from my point of view. And I haven't really seen any conclusive evidence for now in this round either. However - your post makes sound arguments about the guilt - and I can see why you have me on your "Very suspicious" list.

On that note - I am yet again going to "ridiculously" agree with you - because I actually see the merit of what you are saying in your conclusion. Obviously I won't vote for myself - but what you said about Tegvtec and slaze is indeed valid points. As such:

Unvote : Tegvtec
Vote : slaze
 
Slaze you are not making sense. It should be enough to say that if it were as simple as following a formula this would not be a popular game, but I will go on to dispute your points.

You realized that I've figured it out, haven't you, and that it is absolutely critical that everybody agrees to the plan I have prescribed. Anything else is a crapshot, where if all follow me then the mafia, so long as there is only one, can be pinpointed with absolute certainty.

I don't believe you have figured anything out. Your misunderstanding either comes from a purposeful misleading, or your misunderstanding about how the game works. I will point out the specifics in this thread. I want you to keep in mind that, as I previously had clarified with Winston, the mafia votes count during the day phase just as much as the townies. This is the only point that you may be confused on.

So if 4 people vote for person a, and 4 people vote for person b, it is a tie even though there are (I am guessing) 2 mafia in there somewhere. Mafias votes count just as much as Townies. Look back a few pages and see where Winston clarified this for me.

if all 8 of us vote spilt among two people, we will kill a townie, but then the people that voted for the deceased townie will be proven to be townies and the mafia will then be one of the four not voting for the deceased.
Problems:
1) How do you know what happens if we have a tie?
2) How are the people that voted for the deceased proven innocent???

Point number 2 is the most obvious point. How is it that if I randomly choose one of two names, and that person dies -- how does that prove me as innocent? The only person who is revealed is the one who dies, not the other people that voted for him.

In the next round those four will be separated to vote for differing people and with the results of that the potential mafia group can be narrowed some more.

What happens if one of the mafia votes for the person that dies? In your plan that mafia person is presumed and treated as innocent. That's not good!

By the end the mafia can be narrowed to a single person. But it's critical that we start this as soon as possible, another round wasted and we won't have enough rounds to single out the mafia.

The force by which you claim that people should jump on board with your plan "right now" without proper thought gives me more confidence in my vote. Are you feeling vunerable, Mr. Mafioso? Has my deductive reasoning left you frantic?

And again, it would be in the mafia's interest to pursuade people against this...

I've given my reasons clearly and in detail so that other Townies can see why I came to it and why it is reasonable. Your claim that everyone will know who is innocent based on who they vote for is ill-founded.

Very interesting reply on your part!
 
Top Bottom