S-FM Cult of Zed

Cult of Zed
[9 Players]

Summary:
A cult game where the town wins when they lynch the cult leader.

Role List:
Cult Leader Zed
Citizen
Citizen
Citizen
Citizen
Citizen
Citizen
Citizen
Citizen

Rolecards:

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Cult Leader Zed
At night, you may convert someone to become a Cultist.
You may not convert if a Cultist was lynched the previous day.
You share a night chat with your Cultists. (link)

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Cultist
You have no special abilities.
You share a night chat with Cult Leader Zed and fellow Cultists. (link)

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Citizen
You have no special abilities.

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Mechanics:
Days last 48 hours, or until someone is lynched with 51% of the votes.
If no one gets 51% of the votes, the player with the most votes will be lynched. (ties will be settled at random)
Nights are 24 hours.
No Last Wills
Graveyard will reveal roles
Game begins on Day 1.

Win Conditions:
Cultists: Control 50% of the vote, or make it so nothing can stop you from doing so.
Citizens: Lynch Cult Leader Zed.

The game will end when a wincon is achieved.

Rules:
1. Inactives will be replaced or modkilled. Inactivity will be decided at my discretion.
2.No out-of-game communication.
3. No editing or deleting posts.
4. No videos or links. (pictures OK, within reason)
5. No invisible text.
6. No quoting PM's.
7. English only.
8. No pretending to gamethrow.

Does the cult leader have unlimited conversions?

Does town ONLY need to lynch the cult leader, or do they have to kill the converts too?

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Originally Posted by PowersThatBe

Does the cult leader have unlimited conversions?

Does town ONLY need to lynch the cult leader, or do they have to kill the converts too?

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The Cult Leader has an unlimited number of conversions.

Only the cult leader needs to be lynched for town to win.

Seems broken. Players will just lynch who they don't personally like and hope to be converted by cult.

There's no incentive to scum hunt here. There not even incentive to get a lynch off. Less lynches more culties.

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Originally Posted by BananaCucho

Seems broken. Players will just lynch who they don't personally like and hope to be converted by cult.

There's no incentive to scum hunt here. There not even incentive to get a lynch off. Less lynches more culties.

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Plurality lynch. A lynch will always happen.

Players who intentionally sabotage town with the hope of being converted to cult will be punished accordingly.

I give the cult a 72.392649%* chance of winning

*I totally didn't just pull this number out of my ass or anything

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Originally Posted by MattZed

Plurality lynch. A lynch will always happen.

Players who intentionally sabotage town with the hope of being converted to cult will be punished accordingly.

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LOL cause you have such a great track record of punishing anti town moves.

Concern: The soonest that Cult can win is 4 game days.

Its 3 days, but its not an even number.

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Originally Posted by BananaCucho

I give the cult a 72.392649%* chance of winning

*I totally didn't just pull this number out of my ass or anything

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An interesting number of significant digits. Care to elaborate?

But to your concern, town really doesn't have an incentive to just screw around and hope for being converted. The Cult Leader is most likely going to go for the strongest and most townread players, so not taking your wincon seriously just increases your chances of losing as town.

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Originally Posted by Quick

Concern: The soonest that Cult can win is 4 game days.

Its 3 days, but its not an even number.

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Are you worried that is too soon or not soon enough?

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Originally Posted by Quick

Concern: The soonest that Cult can win is 4 game days.

Its 3 days, but its not an even number.

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I suggest dropping a Citizen, with the limited knowledge I have on cult games.

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Originally Posted by Quick

I suggest dropping a Citizen, with the limited knowledge I have on cult games.

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As it is, cult has to win a 4v3 LYLO on D3 for their fastest path to victory. (which frankly I've considered adding a cit to make it 5v3) With one less Cit, Cult only needs to not get lynched D1 or D2. That just feels way too easy.

There is actually only an 11.11% chance of a random lynch catching the Cult Leader D1. Leaving an 88.89% chance of cult leader of surviving day 1.

There is a 12.5% chance of cult leader being lynched day 2. 87.5% chance of not being lynched.

There is a 14.28% chance of cult leader being lynched day 3. 85.71% chance of surviving.

There is a 16.66% chance of cult leader being lynched day 4. 83.33% chance of surviving.

There is a 20% chance of cult leader being lynched day 5. 80% chance of surviving.

There is a 25% chance of cult leader being lynched day 6. 75% chance surviving.


DAY 1:

9 players
51% of vote = 7
Or plurality
Cultist has ONE VOTE.

DAY 2

8 players (2 cult)
51% of the vote = 5 votes
or pluarlity
Cultist has TWO VOTES

DAY 3

7 players (3 cult)
51% of the vote =4
or plurality
Cultist controls 3 VOTES

DAY 4

6players (4 cult)
51% of the vote = 4
plurality does not apply
CULTIST CONTROL 4 VOTES


DAY 5

5 players (5 cult)
Game over.


Concern: Game would be completely over by day 5 if a single cultist was never killed. Given %'s earlier, and everyone just being a citizen, it would be almost impossible for town to win.


Solution: Add 1 mason. Cannot be converted. Kills cultists at night.

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Originally Posted by MattZed

As it is, cult has to win a 4v3 LYLO on D3 for their fastest path to victory. (which frankly I've considered adding a cit to make it 5v3) With one less Cit, Cult only needs to not get lynched D1 or D2. That just feels way too easy.

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2 mislynch game.

I think the fact that I have people encouraging changing the balance in both directions is a good sign.
@PowersThatBe , I'm not really sure where your calculations are going.

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Originally Posted by Quick

2 mislynch game.

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Right, but even in a comparable situation, a 7 citizen vs 2 mafioso game, scum needs three mislynches to win. I have trouble making the game significantly more scumsided than 7v2 with no TPRs.

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Originally Posted by MattZed

Right, but even in a comparable situation, a 7 citizen vs 2 mafioso game, scum needs three mislynches to win. I have trouble making the game significantly more scumsided than 7v2 with no TPRs.

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I suppose you could keep it at 7v1 but have one be a decoy that can't be recruited and nothing else.

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Originally Posted by MattZed

I think the fact that I have people encouraging changing the balance in both directions is a good sign.
@PowersThatBe , I'm not really sure where your calculations are going.

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Right now, if you think about it. Just by himself the cultist leader is 88% chance likely to not die day 1.

Day 2 he only drops a couple of % points, but gains a vote against, so actually his rate of survival increases, slightly.


1/9= 11% of the vote 7 votes to lynch [14.28%]
2/8= 25% of the vote 5 votes to lynch [40%]
3/7= 42% of the vote 4 votes to lynch [75%]
4/6= 66.66% of the vote 4 votes to lynch [100%]

the right side numbers are the %'s of cult to votes needed to lynch ratio. Starting at day 2 his votes is worth 25% of total player population and 40% of the votes needed to lynch. Day 3 he controls 42% of the population but 75% of the votes need to lynch. By day 4 he controls 66% of the population and 100% of the vote to lynch.

As you can see. If he successfully recruits every night and none of them die. He controls a large portion of the vote beginning at day 3.

Also, if you were to look at it this way.

Day 1 = 1/1 = 100% chance of losing game for cult. 1/9 = 11.11% controls 14% of vote though
Day 2 = 1/2 = 50% chance of losing game for cult. 2/8 = 25% controls 40% of the vote though
Day 3 = 1/3 = 33% chance of losing game for cult. 3/7 = 42% controls 75% of the vote though
Day 4 = no chance because they control the votes silly. HAHAHAHAHAHA

*These numbers represent if somehow town figured it down to 1 of the cult being the leader by magic.

So basically. You have upper 80% chance of not being lynched every day, then your vote controlled power increases exponentially each day.

So while the chances of town hitting a scum increase as the scum increases. The vote power is really what you should be paying attention to.


Let's assume town kills 1 scum a day: Minus day 1.

Day 1: 1/9 = 11.11% and 14% of the vote
Day 2: 2/8 = 25% and 40% of the vote
Day 3: 2/7 = 28% and 50% of the vote
Day 4: 2/6 = 33% and 50% of the vote
Day 5: 2/5 = 40% and 66.66% of the vote
Day 6: 2/4 = 50% and 66.66% of the vote

So even if they kill 1 scum a day starting day 2, without getting the cult leader. By day 6 cult still wins because they control a larger portion of the vote. Worst case scenario they come to a tie situation. in which case there is only a 25% chance the cult leader would be hit on day 6 by RNG.



What i comes down to ultimately is that this save really favors the lone scum.

@PowersThatBe , I still don't see the point of your calculations, although you are missing the fact that the Cult Leader cannot convert if a cultist was lynched that day.

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Originally Posted by MattZed

@PowersThatBe , I still don't see the point of your calculations, although you are missing the fact that the Cult Leader cannot convert if a cultist was lynched that day.

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Word, I did forget about that.


The point is, there is a huge margin for cultists to run the table. Basically, you need something to make them not be able to run away with the game in my opinion.

Like the chances to even lynch 1 cultist is very low in comparison. You're more likely to ML than not. Especially if you convert the strongest town read.

You could have all the players pm you at EOD or night their strongest town read, and the player with the largest number of votes, that person is immune at night from being converted. No one will know who it is, and they wont know, only scum will know who it is because they failed to convert them. Since there's no town confirm roles, or invest roles, this just seems imbalanced in favor the scum


The calculations were to show you hard numbers, since there's been some questions about your saves not being balanced (no shade swear to god). Just feels like it's missing something to stop the cultists from taking over. Like it's good they cant convert if a cultist is hit, but they have 75% chance of not getting hit, especially if you pick the biggest town read to be converted. Then it gives scum even more chance to win imo.

PTB there is scum hunting, you know. If you just think of town as random lynchers then of course yoi're going to get Bad results.

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Originally Posted by Gyrlander

PTB there is scum hunting, you know. If you just think of town as random lynchers then of course yoi're going to get Bad results.

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Even with scum hunting it favors the cult leader. Day 1 will surely be a mislynch. Day 2 you convert whomever was seen as town leader day one and then just sheep their vote. Boom day 3 you pretty much have it on lock.

Scum hunting is great but without invest or any tpr the scum can just kick back, relax, and hope someone puts a bigger target on their back. Look at mm similar concept.

Scum only lost bc of a turbo lynch at the end in a 1v2 situation. This is likely to have multiple teammates.

Having people vote on someone not being convertible doesn't work because then town can say the next day and have no reason to lie.

Town's main advantage in this setup is that they only have to lynch the cult leader and the game ends. Right now, the game is more or less a competition between "get three mislynches" and "lynch the Cult Leader." This seems to be roughly a fair competition. Two mislynches seems like quite too few, and four may be making town's life too easy.

But within the world of "three mislynches ends the game," the current setup is more cult-leaning, which may or may not be correct. I'm not opposed to adding another citizen, or perhaps changing one citizen so that it can't be converted. We're close to a good balance point; the question is what minor tweaks, if any, should be added.

Why doesn't Town just wait for everyone to be converted, then everyone wins.

I'd max it @ 4 conversion (living & dead), then that's half the Town.

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Originally Posted by Cryptonic

Why doesn't Town just wait for everyone to be converted, then everyone wins.

I'd max it @ 4 conversion (living & dead), then that's half the Town.

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Mandatory lynch, and game ends the moment cult could win. If you're town and don't lynch cult during the 4v3 LYLO, you just lose.

The cult is actually capped at 3 living+dead members by the mechanics.

(Cult can only be converted following a mislynch, so 4 members means there were 3 mislynches. But then the six remaining members have to be divided among cult+town. At least three of those have to be town, otherwise cult could have ended the game by converting after the third mislynch. And then that only leaves room for three cult)

Note that I've changed the cult wincon to "Control 50% of the vote, or make it so nothing can stop you from doing so." so that if they get down a 2v2 or 3v3 that game doesn't risk coming down to chance from town and cult lining up their votes.

Oh, I didn't see Mandatory Lynch :)

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Originally Posted by Gyrlander

PTB there is scum hunting, you know. If you just think of town as random lynchers then of course yoi're going to get Bad results.

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I was thinking about this last night in bed. In this game, Scum hunting in the traditional sense is not even optimal since everyone is subject to change alignment. It lends itself to playing much more defensively and thinking about playing the game as both Town and Scum.

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Originally Posted by Quick

I was thinking about this last night in bed. In this game, Scum hunting in the traditional sense is not even optimal since everyone is subject to change alignment. It lends itself to playing much more defensively and thinking about playing the game as both Town and Scum.

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Which was part of my point.

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Originally Posted by PowersThatBe

Which was part of my point.

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What do you think of my 7v1 idea?

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Originally Posted by Quick

What do you think of my 7v1 idea?

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Idk I think 9 is fine, it just needs a role that can either kill at night or prevent conversions

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Originally Posted by Quick

I was thinking about this last night in bed. In this game, Scum hunting in the traditional sense is not even optimal since everyone is subject to change alignment. It lends itself to playing much more defensively and thinking about playing the game as both Town and Scum.

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That's why you should check for inconsistencies in players following previous days lol. It's ingame-meta essentially.

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Originally Posted by deathworlds

That's why you should check for inconsistencies in players following previous days lol. It's ingame-meta essentially.

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Plus, buddying is still a good scumtell.

Make a role that can't be converted, but have it show up as a Citizen so that people won't know if they can get converted or not. that seems completely fair.

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Originally Posted by Gyrlander

PTB there is scum hunting, you know. If you just think of town as random lynchers then of course yoi're going to get Bad results.

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thats how you get satistical vaule of a game ballacne though, the game is ballanced based on its roles. a game can be stomped in either faction based on the players but be ballenced based on its role aspect

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Originally Posted by Quick

I was thinking about this last night in bed. In this game, Scum hunting in the traditional sense is not even optimal since everyone is subject to change alignment. It lends itself to playing much more defensively and thinking about playing the game as both Town and Scum.

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Since only two people, at most, will be converted, optimal town play to make things as best as you can for town. If you lynch cult, then you're on the road to victory, and if you get converted then you will have hopefully established yourself as a town leader who can then lead cult to victory.

Only 25% of the town, at most, is getting converted. If you're optimizing how to win as cult, you're trying to win an unlikely victory.

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Originally Posted by MattZed

Since only two people, at most, will be converted, optimal town play to make things as best as you can for town. If you lynch cult, then you're on the road to victory, and if you get converted then you will have hopefully established yourself as a town leader who can then lead cult to victory.

Only 25% of the town, at most, is getting converted. If you're optimizing how to win as cult, you're trying to win an unlikely victory.

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And cue game where no cult is lynched and they win day 4. :P

Cult of Yukinii

I think this game needs a one-shot vigilante that can't kill cult leaders. Turns into a normal cultist when converted.

Also Cult Leader's role card name should be Zed.

This game needs nothing else. The 8 v 1 ratio is fine. the fact town needs to lynch the cult leader means they won't be absurdly trying to just lynch the converted people - and will focus on actual scum hunting. Its actually tested before (all the cult members will die when the leader die - exactly like this setup) and it works.

Although I feel like in Sc2 people are more focused on actions than day play which is something I'm not used to, which might be because of the shorter deadlines, so I'm not sure if my point of view has any importance here.

Approved, please post signups, ya fool

@MattZed

@SuperJack I know what I want to host, but im calling it Cult of the Lynch

Will sort it out tonight ^^