The Godfather, Part 3 [Concluded]

[Sasaki Kojiro]

I would say that gut instinct is the best method for finding mafia, but like all instincts it requires experience to back it up. If you've ever played pool I'm sure you've noticed that at times you can sink every shot without thinking about it--if you've practiced enough so that you know what you have to do for each shot. Mafia is a lot more distracting than playing pool however--and your personal biases and blinders can distract your gut. Your head or some emotion can take over and pretend to be your gut if that makes any sense.

Analysis of post counts and write ups are important but won't find mafia imo. The "probing style" can often lead to good results, I think as a prober you have to do a full reveal of what you were up to quite quickly though else you risk distracting. If possible reveal to a second party privately what you intend to do. The problem with skynet is that first, a lot of the criteria used are faulty--mafioso appearing in the center of of the post count list for example--and second, it's not a good strategy to post a comprehensive list before endgame. The way Kommodus ran holmes, he'd wait till round 5 or six before posting any results and then focus on the key players and who he thought was guilty. We don't want to let the mafia know who we think is innocent, and it's always nice if they kill of our suspects. I'm guilty of saying people are suspicious when it isn't necessary myself. The problem with gut is that while it can work well ID'ing mafia, it's useless for convincing people--and without a solid reread you can be basing your gut of off something you just remembered wrong (kommo always said one of the most useful features of holmes was that it allowed an easy review of each persons posts).

The reason I think mafia often win is that people don't enjoy being townie that much. Not many make it their goal to make the case on a mafioso and get them lynched, which in turn makes it harder to tell whether people are town or not. It's also a lot of work and can be a pain, lol

Basically, being a mafioso is fun and games for the most part (sans detective), while being townie is a constant struggle. But that is what makes being townie that much more rewarding.

[seireikhaan]

Interesting report, GH.

Yes, my probe wasn't all that useful. Partly because of limitations upon the "probe" due to being dead, partly because I was trying to probe Seamus of all people, and, of course, the fact that I far over-analyzed the situation to begin with and was totally wrong on the whole account to begin with.

[Askthepizzaguy]

Yeah you totally overanalyzed the situation. You gotta stop doing that man.

Wait...

That's me, not you.

[Sigurd]

Great game GH, from what I have read.

I particularly liked your analysis. It gave me a realization that I easily fall off the train in post intensive games when having a vanilla townie role. I try to catch up by running after it, but can't keep up. It might be that I don't play vanilla town well and need perhaps a small role or something that will get the tactic gears running. I will need to look into that in future games.

As an addition to what you have all said about townie tactics, I will add a couple more. I have used them in some of the games I have played with various degrees of success.

- What would I have done if I were mafia.
I did apply this in the start of this game and I think I mentioned that I would have chosen TevashSzat as a grunt If I where the Godfather.
Having played as mafioso a number of times both successfully and maybe not so successfully, you get a sense of what works and what don't. It's all about backup plans and dynamic tactics and if you are allowed by the host - manipulation, manipulation, manipulation. In games where I as mafioso can dictate what is put into the night results, are the most fun games IMO. Some mafiosi might have quails about this and think that they might get easily detected based on write style analysis or similar methods. This is not so true, if you have the opportunity to manipulate the writeup, do so and you can lead the town in circles by placing false leads and/or frame players.
This method is probably not the best tool to catch mafiosi in general, but in games where mafia have a choice to for example choose their grunts, you could strike gold.

- Play unpredictable (crazy townie)
This was something I did to keep the mafia from killing me off in the first rounds of a game, and you can probably blame GH for it .
I applied it in Godfather II and contributed (at least I think so ... ) to the downfall of a great team of mafiosi. It creates a disruption and maybe the control mafiosi might have on a game. Unfortunately you might also create a disturbance in the town effort. RR has also played this way in a number of games.
The object is to create a diversion that might result in mafiosi getting nervous enough to make mistakes. One tool is insane accusations or general bully behaviour. While doing this, you analyze responses more or less in the same way as the method attributed to khaan by GH in his analysis.
This works well dead as alive. The mafiosi will be reluctant to kill you off as they want to lynch you to silence you.

[Askthepizzaguy]

I think that there are things that, as a group, generic townies can do to help establish their townie-ness. An individual can fake being a townie, but there should be intelligent behaviors that we can do as a group which make it harder on being the mafia.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

For one:

early game tied votes between 2-4 people. Pro-town roles caught in this wide net can covertly suggest to someone random to please save them. Odds are, they can maintain their role, and if they don't come forward eventually, the person they revealed to can accuse them of just being scum. Tied votes, especially at one vote apiece for many suspects, make it harder for the mafia to defend themselves. They just have to chance it. If they switch their votes to save themselves, it gets suspicious. And there's a decent enough chance that we will actually randomly kill a mafia early, or get it sent to a runoff with them involved, where their voting patterns may (suspiciously) change, or stay the same. There shouldn't be bandwagons of like 9 votes on 1 person and 4 on another. Unless someone reveals as a detective and accuses someone of being scum. And even then, the detective should probably be on that list within a few votes of the leader. Keeping votes close allows late turn vote shifting, and that gives us clues or allows us to correct a mistake. Kind of hard to stop a guy with 9 votes from dying, whereas it's not hard to unvote someone 3 different times.

There are other behaviors which should help townies be townies;

Benefit of the Doubt:
If a person is nearing the chopping block, and is a townie with or without a role, and for some reason wants to survive a couple more rounds, they could request a stay of execution. But, the condition for that is, they must vote themselves either 1 or two rounds later, and not change their vote, and people should lynch them to be sure. Especially effective after the mafia have already lost a murder per round. Added bonus: not likely to be murdered by mafia too, or, they could be murder bait on purpose. Always better for generic townies to be murdered.

Early game lynches:
In spite of a recent game, it's still very difficult to randomly nail a mafia on the first round. A townie should step forward and volunteer for the lynch to protect any pro-town roles from getting accidentally smashed, thus eliminating one suspect and protecting the protown role without having to step forward or even lay low. I'd volunteer. I prefer to die on a non-critical round. But I won't do it every game, or even half of them, because I also want to be murder bait, and there are rare occasions when I have a protown role.

I'm thinking about and reviewing games regarding detective/doctor/mason/roleblocker tactics, too. No plan is foolproof but I think there has to be a way of increasing the odds of success.

In short, I figure there are ways of improving the game of the entire group where, even if the mafia also conform to the strategy or try to find ways around it, it still helps the town.

[Gaius Scribonius Curio]

An informative and well argued discourse GH. Personally I think its a brilliant thing where there so many differing styles of play, analysis and personal gut instincts. It makes things interesting.

@ ATPG: The townie offering themselves for a lynch first round has been tried before. It wasn't overly successful as PK, who was the said townie, was still suspect throughout the game, people had some feeling that he was the ballsiest mafioso ever... Of course with myself being mafia in that game I shamelessly exploited his 'innocence' and got him onside early, and that worked to my advantage. I'd be interested to see it tried again, but I doubt many people like the idea of being the first lynched.

[Beefy187]

*takes notes...

Seconded. All the infos here is amazing. I shall copy it and reread it over and over

[Askthepizzaguy]

Oh, by no means should it be used to determine innocence.

However, if that person WAS mafia... all the better for town, and all the more foolish for mafia. It's more of... someone's gotta die, might as well be someone we are sure isn't a protown role.

[TinCow]

Excellent post, GH. I agree with everything you said. I noted Sasaki's play style very early in this game and have been trying to learn from it. It does indeed seem to be the most effective. I do see value in write-up analysis, and have yet to encounter a game in which it is totally useless. In games where the write-ups are written by the mafia, the style of the writing can be very telling. Though I failed to follow up on it, it's worth noting that I was accurate in my initial profiling of the person/people that created the first write-up. In games where the write-up is done by the host, there always seems to be a hint or a clue somewhere, even if it's just character continuity. The key, IMO, is to use this as a simple piece of evidence in the overall picture.

First, take a look at the game and figure out what kind of a game it is. It should be pretty easy to tell generally how much useful information will be in the write-ups. Games with clues will have obvious clues. Games with mafia-created write-ups will be well-known beforehand. Games with many detailed role descriptions written by the host will give clues as to which specific person killed which target. Games with none of these may have useful information, but it will be harder to find. Second, take a look at the evidence that is being produced from the write-ups. Strong arguments and weak arguments are easily recognizable simply by how much sense they make and how consistent they are with the situation. Finally, add these two factors together to determine the overall weight of the write-up evidence. Strong arguments in games that have high promise for useful write-ups should be given more weight. As the usefulness of the write-ups and the strength of the argument decreases, so should the weight given to any write-up analysis. In any case, even at maximum strength, I would never consider write-up analysis at anything more than 49% of the reason to vote for someone (unless there's literally nothing else to work with). Often 25% to 33% seems a more appropriate figure. Write-ups are best used as reasons to FoS people and put pressure on them. They should not be used exclusively to lynch.

On a personal level, I've found myself delving towards the write-up analysis simply because I can do it and because I'm still learning the 'trade' of mafia detection in other areas. I don't even count Capo as one of my games, because I really had no idea what I was doing and no coherent plan of any kind. Capo was my mafia 'tutorial' and after it was over, I was ready to play the real game. Of my next 4 games, I was mafia in 3 of them. As such, I feel like my efforts as a townie really began with Ephesus and Chicago and continued on into this game. It's easy for me to tell when I don't know what I'm doing, and I've found my own flaws are in my difficulty in IDing strange behavior. In the first two games, I thought this was because I simply did not know peoples' normal play style due to a simple lack of experience. In this game, Sasaki gave me an epiphany with his explanation that we needed to look for inconsistencies in posts. This is what I did when I built my case against shlin, and I was pleased with the product, even if the result was lyching an innocent. I will continue to do write-up analysis when I deem it worthwhile according to the above formula, but I am going to put more effort into Sasaki's proven (and common sense) methodology.

I think my biggest crutch is my posting style. I write in a very deliberate manner that people seem to listen to. While this is great if I'm mafia, it can be a huge hindrance when I'm a townie. It's no good for people to listen to me and vote based on my reasoning if my reasoning is wrong, and it often is. I actively need other people to point out flaws in my analysis, as that is the best way to make sure that any error I make does not damage the town's efforts. Even more importantly, I need to be careful that I do not mount major attacks designed to get a target lynched unless my evidence is very, very strong. Above all, I need to (and try to) remain flexible in my thinking. There is no shame in backing off of a case one has mounted if the counter-arguments are stronger than your own. The key is to get the end result right, not to out-argue the other players. There will always be more good ideas produced by others than you will produce yourself. These need to be identified and embraced.

Above all, I think the town needs to remember that it a team effort working on a large puzzle. No single theory is best, though some are stronger than others. Town efforts seem to work when the totality of the system comes together to produce a mosaic of information from which the various analysis styles can work in harmony. If done properly, the mafia will pop up in the sights of more than one of these styles of analysis. When this convergence occurs, the probability of a good lynch skyrockets. For this reason, townie cooperation and participation is the key to victory, even amongst the dead. The more people who are legitimately trying to analyze the game and locate the mafia, the more likely the town will win. It is easier for the mafia to win when there are only a couple dominant voices because it is easy to assume that role and intentionally lead the town astray. It is far harder for the mafia to win when there are a multitude of strong town voices, none of which disappear after death.

[Askthepizzaguy]

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

...The key is to get the end result right, not to out-argue the other players. There will always be more good ideas produced by others than you will produce yourself. These need to be identified and embraced.

Above all, I think the town needs to remember that it a team effort working on a large puzzle. No single theory is best, though some are stronger than others. Town efforts seem to work when the totality of the system comes together to produce a mosaic of information from which the various analysis styles can work in harmony. If done properly, the mafia will pop up in the sights of more than one of these styles of analysis. When this convergence occurs, the probability of a good lynch skyrockets. For this reason, townie cooperation and participation is the key to victory, even amongst the dead. The more people who are legitimately trying to analyze the game and locate the mafia, the more likely the town will win. It is easier for the mafia to win when there are only a couple dominant voices because it is easy to assume that role and intentionally lead the town astray. It is far harder for the mafia to win when there are a multitude of strong town voices, none of which disappear after death.

The entire thing was a good read, TinCow, but from this point on in your post, I felt as though I was in the presence of a professor. Will remember these lessons here very much.

sensei TinCow

[Reenk Roink]

The synergistic townie analysis play style sounds good, and maybe I will go back and play it sometime, but as for now, the strategy that I like the most to do is eliminate all townies (through manipulation of the Mafia, strategic voting, and outright false accusations) that don't share your POV so you may wield total influence.

[Askthepizzaguy]

The synergistic townie analysis play style sounds good, and maybe I will go back and play it sometime, but as for now, the strategy that I like the most to do is eliminate all townies (through manipulation of the Mafia, strategic voting, and outright false accusations) that don't share your POV so you may wield total influence.

It's bold, I'll give you that. But it does tend to make one a suspect, and...

What if I had been successful in doing just that? We would have lost. So you're essentially banking the game on your own judgment above all the others.

In this case, it would have worked out fine for you, I suppose... hmmm.... carry on!

[Reenk Roink]

Since coming back to play Mafia I have only been lynched twice. Once in your game and just now in Ares' game. Both were random tiebreaker lynches too.

So thanks townies for the free ride.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

suckers

[Askthepizzaguy]

Until I can get a better reading on you, Reenkster, I'll be voting: Reenk Roink in the first round of every game I am in unless I vote for myself. Sort of like the vote: Sasaki tradition. You would want me dead anyways, so perhaps I would like to steal your strategy and eliminate you early.

A taste of your own medicine... mmmm....

[TinCow]

The synergistic townie analysis play style sounds good, and maybe I will go back and play it sometime, but as for now, the strategy that I like the most to do is eliminate all townies (through manipulation of the Mafia, strategic voting, and outright false accusations) that don't share your POV so you may wield total influence.

This is the essence of the prisoner's dilemma for individual players in mafia games. Since we mostly play with the same people over and over again, it is impossible to take the broader 'reputation' issue completely out of the game. We judge others based on their actions in previous games, and in turn people act in various ways as a townie intentionally to give themselves a better shot at victory when they are mafia. Thus, every game has not only its own victory to consider, but there is also a strong incentive for many individual players to further their own long-term strategies, even if it means under performing in, or losing, an individual game.

This reminds me a lot of Risk. I had a regular group of friends in high school who played Risk together every couple months. It was always the same group of people, so reputation for trustworthiness or lackthereof was a huge factor in the inevitable alliance/diplomacy side of the game. One of my friends once broke a pact with me and back stabbed me in one of those games. While entirely legal, it so damaged his long-term reputation that he found it very hard to make alliances in future games and was at something of a permanent disadvantage. At the same time, the rest of us noted our reaction to this particular guy and were ourselves afraid of breaking a pact in a similar manner because of the long-term consequences, even if breaking that pact would be the difference between winning and losing.

I have no lessons or advice to give in regards to this situation; I'm not even sure if there are any. I guess my point is simply that this is a factor in any game of this nature where people play against each other over and over again. It poses its own unique problems and means that people may sometimes be willing to lose a game they could win because they don't want to expose their own 'tell.'

[Askthepizzaguy]

Ouch... I just realized something.

I find myself totally unconcerned with reputation and play on a game-by-game basis. I never play any less than my best try or alter my strategy in a way that allows for long term success if I feel it sacrifices the short term. As such, I also tend to forgive others their trespasses in previous games. A mafia who lied or a player who backstabbed me good I tend to see as a useful and manipulative potential partner down the line. Of course, I'll be sure not to believe everything they say so blindly... but that kind of guile and deceit is its own virtue in a game such as this.

[Quintus.JC]

but that kind of guile and deceit is its own virtue in a game such as this.

That is in fact the sheer essence of the game.

Not a game for the honest I'm afraid.

Edit: I still remember Curio's PMs to be on my first game - Mafia VIII. Amongst the confusion he earned my trust, even though it didn't matter since I couldn't do much anyway.

[White_eyes:D]

I heard in the prevoius "Godfather" games, the songs were random stuff that had nothing to do with the game....... thanks to those songs, Sasaki was able to confirm when I died and link me to Beefy and Tevash with real evidence......me thinks GH give town a bone with those songs.....


The confusion that was created: It also had to do with the write-ups we used.....it got everyone thinking...."maybe it is the one who wrote it?" of course, more veteran players dismissed it as WIFOM.....but it gave them very little to go on...."Gut feelings" is what made us lose very badly on "Chiacigo Soiree" and the fact that Khaan gave little to no clues "like a song about lurking or something would have helped".....allowing them to clean sweep town as are "gut feelings" lynched each other.....basically if there is no evedience, it is highly unlikely you will get a mafiso, on feelings alone.


That's why I was upset that GH gave songs hinting at when one of us was lynched, linking us to Tevash.....but then I figured....without it town would never catch us...

Edit: I still love TinCow's words......it was so true.....

[GeneralHankerchief]

There were no songs in either of the previous games.

In Godfather 2, Silver Rusher put in bolded place names. Some of them meant absolutely nothing, some of them pointed to the Godfather (Csar, now Ichigo) in much more direct ways than any of my clues did. And as you'll see in the commentary (it's coming! ), some of the clues were pretty dense.

[Sasaki Kojiro]

I heard in the prevoius "Godfather" games, the songs were random stuff that had nothing to do with the game....... thanks to those songs, Sasaki was able to confirm when I died and link me to Beefy and Tevash with real evidence......me thinks GH give town a bone with those songs.....

I don't think the songs had much to do with it. The song after tevash's lynch was vague and most people thought he was guilty anyway, and I would have reread keeping an eye out for two mafiosi alive even without the "tonight, tonight" song. Even if the assumption had been that LW and tevash were mafia, beefy would most likely have been pointed to.

[TinCow]

Edit: I still love TinCow's words......it was so true.....

It was almost true. However, it was really Sasaki's case against you and Beefy that ultimately led to your loss. His arguments were extremely well built and the only reason I didn't wholeheartedly start promoting them was the lingering thought that Sasaki might be mafia due to being 'vig' killed. While they were a bit slow to gain traction, they were the last heavily critical analysis in the game. Sasaki's posts were the ones that promoted you and Beefy as legitimate lynch votes. Eventually people came around and that was the foundation that got you lynched.

It is also worth noting that Tevash got lynched due to ATPG's initial Skynet post. That post resulted in a lot of pressure on Reenk and Tevash. This ultimately resulted in Tevash revealing, and his failure to follow up that reveal got him lynched. Without ATPG's Skynet post, I doubt Tevash would have been lynched at that point in the game. ATPG's main failing was that his subsequent posting style was so heavy and so uncompromising that he ended up losing a lot of the credibility he gained with the initial post. While people thus stopped listening to him later on, that doesn't change the fact that it really was ATPG was caused Tevash's lynch.

So, the end result is that all three of you were lynched as a direct result of focused analysis efforts made by townies. Thus, the historical footnote on my quote will always be that despite the massive amount of analysis and information that produced nothing at all, there was a small amount that not only contributed, but resulted in a town victory.

[White_eyes:D]

Funny thing is.....you almost won a townie victory at the start....you almost got beefy lynched for the poor grammer in Tevash's kill write-up... so as a result.....we made it 11 rounds before Sasaki nailed us.....and even then town was still confused as hell

Edit: and in your kill write-up I put "BEEFED" in it.....but because of the TinCow name...(I guess) and also how I used Reenks kill write-up, made you guys confused as could be..... and not question Beefys innocence

[White_eyes:D]

You guys need to understand that it was hard for me and Beefy.. I had never really been a Mafia in a large game before....Beefy was also the Godfather and would have diffculties doing any write-ups. I myself have never done a write-up of any kind before..(hence, why I copied many of the previous write-ups I had seen in the past....). We also were up against many known veterans.....and losing Tevash hurt us in the long run.....I even made that fake PM....but he never used it....but I had said I would go on till the end, and I did.

[TinCow]

You should be very pleased with your performance. You came very, very close to victory. I seriously doubt many people could have done better.

[White_eyes:D]

You should be very pleased with your performance. You came very, very close to victory. I seriously doubt many people could have done better.

Just know that I learned much of my Mafia playstyle, from Reenk on "Whispers in the night"....

Reenk= Master Mauipation(damn vista, no spell check) "He's like Nam.....he always is most dangrous, when he is quiet...." He almost always gets town to do what he wants....and as you saw I got a few people to change there votes to Reenk at the end.....Reenk soundedly whooped me in that....HE EVEN encourged me to get more people to vote for him....

[Askthepizzaguy]

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

It was almost true. However, it was really Sasaki's case against you and Beefy that ultimately led to your loss. His arguments were extremely well built and the only reason I didn't wholeheartedly start promoting them was the lingering thought that Sasaki might be mafia due to being 'vig' killed. While they were a bit slow to gain traction, they were the last heavily critical analysis in the game. Sasaki's posts were the ones that promoted you and Beefy as legitimate lynch votes. Eventually people came around and that was the foundation that got you lynched.

It is also worth noting that Tevash got lynched due to ATPG's initial Skynet post. That post resulted in a lot of pressure on Reenk and Tevash. This ultimately resulted in Tevash revealing, and his failure to follow up that reveal got him lynched. Without ATPG's Skynet post, I doubt Tevash would have been lynched at that point in the game. ATPG's main failing was that his subsequent posting style was so heavy and so uncompromising that he ended up losing a lot of the credibility he gained with the initial post. While people thus stopped listening to him later on, that doesn't change the fact that it really was ATPG was caused Tevash's lynch.

So, the end result is that all three of you were lynched as a direct result of focused analysis efforts made by townies. Thus, the historical footnote on my quote will always be that despite the massive amount of analysis and information that produced nothing at all, there was a small amount that not only contributed, but resulted in a town victory.

That's all I was really looking for. Thank you TinCow.

I freely admit my failings after round 6. And Sasaki does deserve a lion share of credit. Were it not for his independent analysis, we might have missed the other two. And I agree, the more analysts we have, the better. I'll work on shortening and tightening my case, and also very much listening to other people's cases.

Analysis itself seems to have been painted this game as possibly being a waste of time, but it seems clear that analysis in general got all three of them. Random votes are ok if you have got nothing, but I always believed reasoned votes are better.

[Thermal]

One thing none seem to have picked up on is that players that guess things often look like there helping when really there disguising there role, e.g.

after a write up

'maybe we have a mason pair in his game?'
or
'maybe we have a reviver'

etc. I picked up on these behaviors and 9/10 the person who says this probably has that role themselves

[Beefy187]

Must..get... more... beef supporters.

Get them to trust me blindly. That way all the accusation against me will be useless

[Askthepizzaguy]

Don't look too far, Beefy. I am a zombie, after all. That's another way of saying.... I'm meat that is still alive.

I follow the evil cow.... the zombie cow.

edit:
Beefy wanted me to write a song about him, based on "American Idiot" by Green Day. (Seriously, he did.) Here it is.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Beefy187
based on American Idiot by Green Day
New lyrics by Askthepizzaguy




Don't wanna be made entirely out of Beef
Especially not when I am playing Mafia
And can you hear the sound of the lynch mob?
They're coming to lynch Beefy once again.

Welcome to Beefy's dillemma
They're always coming to kill ya
He's the town's most popular lynch target

With futile dreams of tomorrow
Beefy's life will always end in sorrow
For the town will always lynch you

Well maybe he'll come to America
And be part of a flame-broiled burger
Now everybody order the number three
The Triple Whopper with all the extra cheese

Welcome to Beefy's dillemma
They're always coming to kill ya
He's the town's most popular lynch target

With futile dreams of tomorrow
Beefy's life will always end in sorrow
For the town will always lynch you

Don't want to end up like Beefy187
For he's sure to end up in Beefy heaven
He's the ruler of all of Beefydom
Come on and sing right along with him

Welcome to Beefy's dillemma
They're always coming to kill ya
He's the town's most popular lynch target

With futile dreams of tomorrow
Beefy's life will always end in sorrow
For the town will always lynch you

[Askthepizzaguy]

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

(snip)

******

I apologize for the poor formatting. I don't have the energy to go through and fix it up right now. Will get to the last 20 pages presently.

I only just now read the entire case against beefy.

Wow. I had deliberately avoided it because I felt it was a scummy attempt to get a townie lynched, not a true analysis. Had I read it, I might have agreed. There were extraordinarily good points in it. Hindsight... You know what? That's it. I refuse to ignore even the people I think are scummy from now on. I'm tired of making such sloppy mistakes. Innocent until PROVEN scummy from now on.

And no more passes. Let's see... I deliberately avoided analyzing beefy in the first analysis due to the volume of his posts. Then later, I gave him a pass because town always lynches him. Stellar logic.