TheWaaagh
November 29th, 2011, 05:42 AM
@TheWaaagh
As for strategy. Lynching suspected Commoners will be a better choice. They might harbor Lucifer. There are less Commoners to lynch. And they are more open to being lynched. It increases their chances to win. Because the less Commoners there are, the harder Demons can hide. Sinners will tend to resist lynching. Because its a 50-50 for them. This is my rebuttal. Do post your reply to my rebuttal in death chat. I will read it if I join you.
First of all, the idea that the less commoners there are, the harder it is for demons to hide is false. That however, is true if you replace the word commoner with sinner. See, the problem with this game wasn't that the mechanics were flawed, but that people simply didn't care to read through how the game worked. I mean in day II people were still asking questions that had either already been answered day one or could be answered by looking through the rules that DR had posted before the game even started. I'm guilty of this too, as you'll see from my edit.
I guess the advantage of using the traditional mafia setup is that everyone already has an understanding of the interactions before it starts, which is why people continued trying to relate "sinners" to "citizens that could be culted". In reality though, and as I've already explained, that isn't really an appropriate analogue at all.
Of course lynchers will resist being lynched, hell anyone would resist being lynched. Look at Brennenburg the commoner, whose attitude quickly changed as the votes piled up on himself. No one likes to be lynched, but the truth of the matter is that everyone else should vote to lynch a Sinner, so it shouldn't matter whether the target accepts it or not. Let me run the scenario down for you for each faction and why they should vote to lynch a sinner:
1) Eternity: This one should be obvious, they can't convert them without risking a demon finding out Jesus' identity (and from there interactions in the day chat could reveal the identity's of both angels and disciples). And, even if a sinner doesn't have a demon inside them, it still requires two converts to make them a disciple. And given that Jesus must die and essentially go AFK in order to win the game, it is crucial that they not waste any of their conversions.
VERDICT: Dangerous at worst, useless at best. LYNCH.
2) Humanity: The danger of being killed is even more pronounced here than being town in a mafia setup, since if Sin wins they have to have lived to make it. So it makes sense to kill Sinners in an attempt to keep the KPN down to one person a night. Or if you want to look at it from a more cynical perspective, as Brennenburg pointed out (and something I hadn't initially realized) lynching counts towards the kill limit for Sin. This means that if you are a human, and you vote to lynch a Sinner, you are helping Sin to reach their target number of murders. The bright side is that unlike at night, you have control over who dies. If you lynch sinners during the day, that's one less kill Sin needs, and one less kill that could've been you. Keep in mind, that's a worst case scenario, best case you actually do lynch a demon that was hiding in a sinner's body. The benefits of that should be obvious.
VERDICT: LYNCH.
3) Sinner: I realize that Sinners are technically either "Sin" or "Humanity" but I felt like I should address them as their own separate faction. A sinner is in a tough position because you're right, it's a 50-50 chance they don't know what their alignment is. But the way I see it is similar to a survivor in a regular mafia game. Sure, you might start off lynching mafia members, but then as the game comes to a close, and you realize that despite your efforts they could manage a majority with your help, you decide to switch to their side and win the game with them at the last minute. This is a sinner's job. They should vote to kill other sinners on the chance that they might kill a demon. Then if they find out that they're a demon themselves, this is good. They've proven in the past their hatred of demons/sinners and are less likely to be the target of investigative roles. And, if they've done a good enough job being anti-sin, Jesus might even blind recruit them, giving them valuable info (as outlined above) back to Lucifer. Sure their lynch votes against other sinners might've killed a couple of demons, but being under the radar is more important than having their no lynch vote on a later found demon permanently accessible in the forum archive. And keep in mind, that's all assuming that the sinner secretly (even unknowingly) has a demon inside them. Assuming the better scenario, and that they don't, well this whole time they've been helping the town to clear the field. And if a sinner finds themselves on the stand? Well they can rest easy knowing that if they don't have a demon inside them, they will still win with the town.
VERDICT: Has a demon inside them vs another Sinner: LYNCH. Doesn't have a demon inside them: LYNCH.
4) Rome: Rome needs to kill Sin, and thus sinners, in the early game for a few reasons. One, is that if Lucifer and his gang play their hardest and manage to get very lucky early on versus Eternity, Rome could lose the entire game despite all of their members still being alive. That is bad. And, as long as Tiberius lives, Rome has to worry about Lucifer visiting in the night and killing him in order for Sin to gain a bunch of recruits. This is also bad. I know for some reason you think that Rome should keep the option to side with Sin open, but in reality you can't expect that alliance to exist and work unless Tiberius is dead. And you can't plan all of your actions around Tiberius dying and trying to curry favor with Sin yourself, for the same reason that a sheriff can't sit around and help cult in hopes that he himself will one day be culted. It's bad play and it misses the whole point of the cooperation aspect of mafia. If everyone just sits around hoping to be culted, or hoping to win with Sin, then nothing gets done and the game stops being a game (or fun).
VERDICT: LYNCH.
So those are all the reasons why lynching sinners is a good idea. Now for why lynching commoners is a bad idea. Don't worry, this one won't be a wall of text.
Rome doesn't want to do it because that's their pool of legionnaires, and they can figure out who Lucifer is by (instead of lynching) trying to recruit them using Pilate.
Eternity doesn't want to do it because that's part of their pool of disciples. And since the game ends when all of Eternity dies, sometimes converting a commoner is a better strategy than waiting for an angel to scope out more human power roles.
And for one other important reason: There's however many commoners, but only one Lucifer. The odds of a commoner being Lucifer, as opposed to the "50-50" chance of a sinner being a demon, is much, much lower. So just from a mathematical perspective, ignoring all of the other reasons I gave for lynching sinners, it still makes more sense to do that than to do commoners.
Now I just have to hope you die so you can read this :).
Edit: I did make one mistake but it's not terribly big. I didn't realize that the demon is a sinner until he's been unsealed. That doesn't really change anything though, because it takes two nights for Lucifer to unseal someone. So yes, towards the end of the game the focus should shift towards commoners. But in the early game taking out sinners is more important. What's the difference? In the late game, once the pool of participants has dwindled, and Eternity has gotten into a power position, the number of commoners won't be as large as it once was. That means that the odds of one of them actually being a hidden demon will be higher, and at that point Jesus can run the risk of converting to discover if they're a demon or not. Not to mention Tiberius and Pilate using commoners to soak up damage as bodyguards as Lucifer gets more desperate to kill Tiberius.
So yeah, still no reason to start lynching commoners before sinners.
As for strategy. Lynching suspected Commoners will be a better choice. They might harbor Lucifer. There are less Commoners to lynch. And they are more open to being lynched. It increases their chances to win. Because the less Commoners there are, the harder Demons can hide. Sinners will tend to resist lynching. Because its a 50-50 for them. This is my rebuttal. Do post your reply to my rebuttal in death chat. I will read it if I join you.
First of all, the idea that the less commoners there are, the harder it is for demons to hide is false. That however, is true if you replace the word commoner with sinner. See, the problem with this game wasn't that the mechanics were flawed, but that people simply didn't care to read through how the game worked. I mean in day II people were still asking questions that had either already been answered day one or could be answered by looking through the rules that DR had posted before the game even started. I'm guilty of this too, as you'll see from my edit.
I guess the advantage of using the traditional mafia setup is that everyone already has an understanding of the interactions before it starts, which is why people continued trying to relate "sinners" to "citizens that could be culted". In reality though, and as I've already explained, that isn't really an appropriate analogue at all.
Of course lynchers will resist being lynched, hell anyone would resist being lynched. Look at Brennenburg the commoner, whose attitude quickly changed as the votes piled up on himself. No one likes to be lynched, but the truth of the matter is that everyone else should vote to lynch a Sinner, so it shouldn't matter whether the target accepts it or not. Let me run the scenario down for you for each faction and why they should vote to lynch a sinner:
1) Eternity: This one should be obvious, they can't convert them without risking a demon finding out Jesus' identity (and from there interactions in the day chat could reveal the identity's of both angels and disciples). And, even if a sinner doesn't have a demon inside them, it still requires two converts to make them a disciple. And given that Jesus must die and essentially go AFK in order to win the game, it is crucial that they not waste any of their conversions.
VERDICT: Dangerous at worst, useless at best. LYNCH.
2) Humanity: The danger of being killed is even more pronounced here than being town in a mafia setup, since if Sin wins they have to have lived to make it. So it makes sense to kill Sinners in an attempt to keep the KPN down to one person a night. Or if you want to look at it from a more cynical perspective, as Brennenburg pointed out (and something I hadn't initially realized) lynching counts towards the kill limit for Sin. This means that if you are a human, and you vote to lynch a Sinner, you are helping Sin to reach their target number of murders. The bright side is that unlike at night, you have control over who dies. If you lynch sinners during the day, that's one less kill Sin needs, and one less kill that could've been you. Keep in mind, that's a worst case scenario, best case you actually do lynch a demon that was hiding in a sinner's body. The benefits of that should be obvious.
VERDICT: LYNCH.
3) Sinner: I realize that Sinners are technically either "Sin" or "Humanity" but I felt like I should address them as their own separate faction. A sinner is in a tough position because you're right, it's a 50-50 chance they don't know what their alignment is. But the way I see it is similar to a survivor in a regular mafia game. Sure, you might start off lynching mafia members, but then as the game comes to a close, and you realize that despite your efforts they could manage a majority with your help, you decide to switch to their side and win the game with them at the last minute. This is a sinner's job. They should vote to kill other sinners on the chance that they might kill a demon. Then if they find out that they're a demon themselves, this is good. They've proven in the past their hatred of demons/sinners and are less likely to be the target of investigative roles. And, if they've done a good enough job being anti-sin, Jesus might even blind recruit them, giving them valuable info (as outlined above) back to Lucifer. Sure their lynch votes against other sinners might've killed a couple of demons, but being under the radar is more important than having their no lynch vote on a later found demon permanently accessible in the forum archive. And keep in mind, that's all assuming that the sinner secretly (even unknowingly) has a demon inside them. Assuming the better scenario, and that they don't, well this whole time they've been helping the town to clear the field. And if a sinner finds themselves on the stand? Well they can rest easy knowing that if they don't have a demon inside them, they will still win with the town.
VERDICT: Has a demon inside them vs another Sinner: LYNCH. Doesn't have a demon inside them: LYNCH.
4) Rome: Rome needs to kill Sin, and thus sinners, in the early game for a few reasons. One, is that if Lucifer and his gang play their hardest and manage to get very lucky early on versus Eternity, Rome could lose the entire game despite all of their members still being alive. That is bad. And, as long as Tiberius lives, Rome has to worry about Lucifer visiting in the night and killing him in order for Sin to gain a bunch of recruits. This is also bad. I know for some reason you think that Rome should keep the option to side with Sin open, but in reality you can't expect that alliance to exist and work unless Tiberius is dead. And you can't plan all of your actions around Tiberius dying and trying to curry favor with Sin yourself, for the same reason that a sheriff can't sit around and help cult in hopes that he himself will one day be culted. It's bad play and it misses the whole point of the cooperation aspect of mafia. If everyone just sits around hoping to be culted, or hoping to win with Sin, then nothing gets done and the game stops being a game (or fun).
VERDICT: LYNCH.
So those are all the reasons why lynching sinners is a good idea. Now for why lynching commoners is a bad idea. Don't worry, this one won't be a wall of text.
Rome doesn't want to do it because that's their pool of legionnaires, and they can figure out who Lucifer is by (instead of lynching) trying to recruit them using Pilate.
Eternity doesn't want to do it because that's part of their pool of disciples. And since the game ends when all of Eternity dies, sometimes converting a commoner is a better strategy than waiting for an angel to scope out more human power roles.
And for one other important reason: There's however many commoners, but only one Lucifer. The odds of a commoner being Lucifer, as opposed to the "50-50" chance of a sinner being a demon, is much, much lower. So just from a mathematical perspective, ignoring all of the other reasons I gave for lynching sinners, it still makes more sense to do that than to do commoners.
Now I just have to hope you die so you can read this :).
Edit: I did make one mistake but it's not terribly big. I didn't realize that the demon is a sinner until he's been unsealed. That doesn't really change anything though, because it takes two nights for Lucifer to unseal someone. So yes, towards the end of the game the focus should shift towards commoners. But in the early game taking out sinners is more important. What's the difference? In the late game, once the pool of participants has dwindled, and Eternity has gotten into a power position, the number of commoners won't be as large as it once was. That means that the odds of one of them actually being a hidden demon will be higher, and at that point Jesus can run the risk of converting to discover if they're a demon or not. Not to mention Tiberius and Pilate using commoners to soak up damage as bodyguards as Lucifer gets more desperate to kill Tiberius.
So yeah, still no reason to start lynching commoners before sinners.