I think we miscommunicated here.
mislynches are bad, but we must lynch to win, and in lynching, we run the risk of mislynching.
If on each Day, our top lynch candidate is statistically likely to be Town, isn’t it actually ‘less’ likely that our second lynch candidate is Town?
I do not agree with this reasoning. Following it to its conclusion, we should never lynch at all, since we could zero our risk of mislynch by not lynching. We can’t operate that way. All other considerations aside, two lynches increases the absolute chance that we will catch at least one Scum (over one lynch). I do think it definitely increases the risk of one mislynch, but if we have one mislynch and one caught Scum, that’s definitely in our favor.
Also, if the possibility of a double-PC-lyse is at least on the table, it greatly increases the difficulty Scum will have maneuvering their own votes. Since the second-highest-vote-getter is in danger of dying as well as the first, the Scum can only merrily vote for one another if they are actually willing to sacrifice someone… no voting Scum up to second place to sow confusion later and then getting a Townie to take the real fall. And if they are willing to sacrifice someone? I’ll take the gift.
“Mislynches should be avoided” != “lynches should be avoided”. Another misrepresentation of what I have said and another thing that is absolutely laughable.
I have yet to see anyone insist that the ONLY option is to lyse a Spawn each round, yet that is the position that a clump of you seem to be arguing against and what you seem to be portraying as the position of people who have not advocated that position.
Since before the roles were handed out there has been discussion of the pros and cons of prioritizing Spawn lysing vs prioritizing Scum lysing vs some combination of the two. Discussing the pros or cons of any one position in such a debate during the first hours of a game is healthy but there seems to be a good bit of jumping to extremes going on.
Right now, I’d be in favor of a double PC-lysing. We (presumably) still hold the advantage in numbers and disadvantage in information. These early deaths give us what we need: information (even if it costs us a bit of our advantage in numbers).
Checking in.
I definitely fall into the
lyse Spawn
group for this Summer. I understand the arguments on both sides, but I think it’s important to remember that the additional information to be gained by double player lysing will eventually be lost in a double Spawn lysing.
Checking in.
I’m suffering the usual “satellite delay” from playing on UK time, but in this case I don’t mind because there’s a lot of interesting ideas being thrashed out. I have to admit my first thoughts were: “Wait, we know the name of a character we have to lynch to win, and we still get another lynch for info? That seems pretty straightforward.” But I see now that, as they say, it’s a bit more complicated than that.
There’s something initially very appealing about Oredigger’s idea of using Spawn as a weapon to disrupt Scum’s Winter votes, but on closer inspection I don’t think it would work. Even if Spawn have a majority, they vote (IIRC) independently, so the Scum should be able to get a plurality. If we’re down to the stage where there are so few players that there’s a good chance that multiple Spawn will “choose” the same person, then we’re probably at the point where we need to be killing Spawn anyhow.
However, I think that Oredigger’s approach of trying to discomfit scum is a good one. I’ve got in trouble in previous games for raising this on Day One, but I think it’s good strategy so I’m going to stick with it: let’s ask ourselves what the scum are thinking. Any strategy game where you’re not wondering what your opponent is planning is a game you’re going to lose. So when we’re deciding on how to use our two lynches, we should definitely consider our cost/benefit position - but we should also ask, “What do scum least want us to do?”
The obvious answer is, “Lyse two Scum.” But with respect to our collective acumen, that’s not a very likely outcome on Day One. Conversely, I’m pretty sure the best outcome for scum is for us to lynch two Pond. In regard to the Spawn population, the question is whether a large Spawn pop. (which brings scum closer to victory) is worth (to them) the risk of losing control of their nightkill. (NB a large Spawn pop. will also potentially affect the Summer lyse, something which we have to consider ourselves) I’d say at this stage of the game, it would be in the Scum’s interest to build up the Spawn, as a way of reducing the number of mislynches.
So on that basis, I’m going to
vote Spawn.
Oh, and one more thing… if we have any Masons, can I ask that you try to avoid claiming on Day One? I know from experience that it’s easy to go charging in, confident in the knowledge that your buddies have your back, and pick up some quick votes for standing out on Day One. But a Day One claim is the least effective strategy for Masons - better to wait until you can mass-claim and shrink the potential scum pool in a way that gives us a real edge.
On the face of it, the spawn mechanic is almost balanced out by the double-lyse. However, there are a couple side effects:
• Any close lynches might be decided by the random spawn votes (this gets more likely as we get closer to lylo).
• The spawn also influence the scum’s choice of NK (see Chrono’s post #28, sounds like scum have to take an NK vote).
I think the default strategy should be to lyse one spawn and one player. However, we should reassess this as the game develops. There may be roles that interact with the spawn in some way. If we have a compulsive vig it might be better for them to do the spawn killing. Although it’s very unlikely to occur, if we do have 2 positives on scum it would be better to lyse them both in preference to spawn, as they may have power roles where the spawn do not. Finally, there may be some odd situations in an endgame where letting a spawn live is the smart move. For example, with 1 scum left, leaving a spawn alive means they would lose control of their NK (assuming ties are broken randomly). That might be an advantage if we have an outed power role at that point.
Vote Spawn of Chronos
Are ties in the NK vote resolved randomly?
That’s a bad idea, killing spawn is always a safe pro-town move, whereas a ‘mildly suspicious’ player is quite likely to be town. Leaving spawn alive brings the scum win condition forward. To take an extreme example, if we lynched two townies each day we could be at lylo by Day 4 (assuming 4 scum, no additional kills, and no 3rd parties), with 4 random voting spawn floating around.
Strongly disagree. I’ve always had more problems with townies giving false positives than with scum playing brilliant games. In the absence of any other info, I’d prefer to kill off the weaker players. If I think someone is playing anti-town my threshold for voting them is lower.
I think we should ensure that there are enough votes down to guarantee a spawn lyse toDay, but I see no need for every player to place one of their votes for spawn.
This is bad strategy. Lysing two players toDay does give us more information to work with toMorrow, but does not increase the overall rate at which we generate info. Sooner or later we have to lyse the spawn. Simplest case, lysing a player and a spawn two Days in a row is better than lysing two players toDay and two spawn toMorrow. The reason being, we can make a more informed decision on the second player lyse toMorrow, based on any flips. By lysing two players we are also increasing the risk of outing our power roles.
See my comments above.
We shouldn’t be scared of the lynch, but what we are discussing here is when we lyse. As for killing the vote runner-up, I think that’s a possible vig strategy if we have one.
Just a quick post/read up to check in.
Not as statistically likely to be scum as someone lynch the Day after, assuming the scum successfully Night killed reduce town numbers.
Yes, this game is rife with risks and most of the fun comes from puzzling out how those risks interplay and evolve. With so much unknown this early in the game I see no reason to move from the safest bet and we can see where the data points fall from there. Which is why I am playing devil’s advocate to those who seem to be straying too far from the stable middle.
I don’t really speak maths, but I do not think your parsing of the probabilities of two player lynch candidates flipping as Town is correct.
This is correct.
Btw, are any other players besides myself and amrussell based outside the US?
Never mind Chronos, I see you’ve already answered my question in #120.
I really hope we don’t have any Town power roles who would need/want us to keep the Spawn alive for some reason. I really don’t want to have to try and sort out a motivational variable there, but that could very well be our plight.
Also not as statistically likely as someone we lynch after 3 Days.
I’m not sure I understand the logic.
Cookies was saying we were less likely to lynch Scum with the second lynch of a Day. I argued that if the first is a mislynch, the second is actually more likely. I wasn’t pointing out that it was the single most likely Scum lynch in the game.
If we want the most likely Scum lynch, we just need to put ourselves at lynch or lose…but I don’t recommend that.
@Ed - The problem is, by postponing lysing the spawn we are reducing the chance of each lynch hitting scum slightly, without increasing the total number of lynches we have. Therefore, between now and the game end we would have a reduced chance of winning.
If this continues to cause confusion I’ll run some example numbers.
If all ties are resolved randomly, we should make a concerted effort not to let it tie. And I think anyone who does at the last minute vote to make something a tie should be looked at as a possible suspect.
Also…NOOOO NO MATH PLEASE.
And that was what I was getting at. ToDay, lysing a Spawn makes sense. ToMorrow, we’ll have some information and can reevaluate.
A good argument in favor of attempting to lyse two Scum and leave the Spawn alone is, Scum have brains and can plan. Spawn don’t and can’t. Scum will vote to best serve their purposes, Spawn will vote randomly.
Again, I agree this is correct toDay. We have the option to lynch two players, at the cost of the bad buys growing in size. That’s a potent weapon. I want to keep this [del]technological terror[/del] stratagem available for use.
@Freudian Slit: I agree, we want to avoid close votes, as that permits the Spawn to decide who gets lynched. Also, here there be maths.
@DiggitCamara - Do you think the vig, if we have one, should take a shot Night 1?
Not directed at me, but I’d say no. Not unless he’s really sure, and I doubt we will be. Look how well that vigging went last game–not a single scum caught. If he hadn’t killed so indiscriminately, Town might have won the game.