S-FM Trip to the Library (11P)

Role List
Mafioso
Mafioso
Librarian
Citizen
Citizen
Citizen
Citizen
Citizen
Citizen
Citizen
Citizen

Roles

Spoiler : : :

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Mafioso
You are a member of the Mafia, you share a factional chat with your team mate. You may perform the factional kill

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Citizen
You are a member of the Town.

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Librarian
You are a member of the Town. At night you may select a player to give them a book.

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Feedback:

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You have died!

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You receive a book titled [HOST CHOICE] last night!

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Special Mechanics:
Be Quiet: Players may only make between 1-15 posts in the thread per day. Players are encouraged to make more substantial posts, and thus must post at least 200 words per day whilst not exceeding 15 post per day. Players will be mod-killed if they fail either requirement.

Spoiler : What counts as a "word"? :

"a single distinct meaningful element of speech or writing, used with others (or sometimes alone) to form a sentence and typically shown with a space on either side when written or printed."
I will not count the following as "words"

• Emotes
• Emoticons
• Emojis
• Singular letters with the exception of "a" "i"
• Strings of characters which do not appear in any dictionary nor are used commonly in the mafia community.
• Pictures
• Videos
• Votes
• Anything in BBCode

Usernames count as one word.
Acronyms (I.E. "WIFOM") count as one word.

Mechanics:
Days are 48 hours, nights are 24 hours
Last wills are not allowed.
Death notes are not allowed.
Lynches will be handled by the automated lynch system using [vote] tags, with a majority (51%) vote inducing a hammer. If a hammer does not occur, a plurality lynch will occur, unless a "skip" has the most votes. All lynches are optional
Night actions must be PM'd to host at least 1 hour before night ends.
Game starts day 1.
Suicide is not allowed.
Alignment is revealed upon death.
Ties favor the Mafiavs town.

Order of Operations:
1: All kills

Win Conditions:
Mafia: Obtain a 50% majority, or have nothing able to stop this.
Town: Eliminate the Mafia

Rules:

1. Inactive players will be replaced or modkilled at host discretion. Do not publicly call for replacements or modkills

2. Refrain from using White Bold text, this is for use of the Host only.

3. Players are not allowed to post screenshots.

4. Do not post links to other websites.

5. Videos and photos larger than an avatar must be in spoiler tags.

6. Do not spam pictures or videos.

7. Excessive insulting is not allowed.

8. Refrain from using languages other than English.

9. Quoting any host to player communication (excluding feedback or anything found in the setup page) will result in an immediate modkill. You may paraphrase.

10. Usage of text that is not visible is not allowed.

11. Communicating with players or through third parties about the game through unapproved channels is strictly forbidden

12. All other S-FM In-game rules apply, with the exception of In-game Rule #7

SC2Mafia
Where you can't just add post restrictions or other minor mechanical changes in the signups.

In worst case scenario, town loses majority after 2 mislynches in a 13P without any power roles. Scenarios such as "mafia and gang kill eachother" do exist, though. What do you think of transforming a citizen into a randomly picked N0 peek alignment cop (i.e. a citizen who knows someone else is town at start)? I won't die on that hill, but I do want to throw the idea out there, especially considering how the special mechanic might play against town because of the shift it operates in how people can be read. After all, you can't expect people to answer many questions or to ask many if they can't post more than 15 times a day.

Modkills suck (very much) and should only be used as a last resort, i.e. when not using them would be worse than doing so. They inevitably greatly affect games. Thus, force-replacing people who do not respect the posting requirements seems much better than modkilling them. If no replacements can be found after the slot has been left empty for a while, a modkill is a good idea to make sure the rule remains enforced.

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Originally Posted by Marshmallow Marshall

In worst case scenario, town loses majority after 2 mislynches in a 13P without any power roles. Scenarios such as "mafia and gang kill eachother" do exist, though. What do you think of transforming a citizen into a randomly picked N0 peek alignment cop (i.e. a citizen who knows someone else is town at start)? I won't die on that hill, but I do want to throw the idea out there, especially considering how the special mechanic might play against town because of the shift it operates in how people can be read. After all, you can't expect people to answer many questions or to ask many if they can't post more than 15 times a day.

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If 2:2:9 is considered a "balanced" setup, and the posting restriction is anti-town, I suppose it makes sense to give them another small advantage somewhere.
I'll add a n0 cop to someone.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Marshmallow Marshall

Modkills suck (very much) and should only be used as a last resort, i.e. when not using them would be worse than doing so. They inevitably greatly affect games. Thus, force-replacing people who do not respect the posting requirements seems much better than modkilling them. If no replacements can be found after the slot has been left empty for a while, a modkill is a good idea to make sure the rule remains enforced.

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I don't see how modkilling offenders of this special mechanic is different than modkilling players that go against their blackmail. This isn't a complex setup, if people don't want to follow the one special mechanic then they shouldn't sign up.

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Originally Posted by deathworlds

If 2:2:9 is considered a "balanced" setup, and the posting restriction is anti-town, I suppose it makes sense to give them another small advantage somewhere.
I'll add a n0 cop to someone.




I don't see how modkilling offenders of this special mechanic is different than modkilling players that go against their blackmail. This isn't a complex setup, if people don't want to follow the one special mechanic then they shouldn't sign up.

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Blackmail kills are not "modkills" for not respecting game rules, they are kills that are meant to exist within an ability; the comparison is wrong. A better comparison would be between overposting (or underposting) and someone breaking a rule about toxicity. If someone accidentally makes 16 posts, should it really result in a slot dying out of nowhere instead of a replacement? In terms of game integrity, this doesn't seem optimal.

Partial source: I have played a game where toxic people were modkilled instead of being replaced. It was not fun, it did not feel fair, and it felt like anything but Mafia. Is there a reason to prefer modkills to replacements?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Marshmallow Marshall

Blackmail kills are not "modkills" for not respecting game rules, they are kills that are meant to exist within an ability; the comparison is wrong. A better comparison would be between overposting (or underposting) and someone breaking a rule about toxicity. If someone accidentally makes 16 posts, should it really result in a slot dying out of nowhere instead of a replacement? In terms of game integrity, this doesn't seem optimal.

Partial source: I have played a game where toxic people were modkilled instead of being replaced. It was not fun, it did not feel fair, and it felt like anything but Mafia. Is there a reason to prefer modkills to replacements?

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There's a few apparent options for alternatives to me, but they don't seem better than the modkill to me at least.
Going over 15 is replacement: This seems suboptimal depending on how one rules it, if the slot retains the posting requirements, then the slot cannot post for the remaining day. If the slot can post 15 more times, then they can post more content than the other slots in the game. Not to mention all the angleshootey nonsense that can come from replacements anyways
Going over 15 is suicide: Suicide in mafia is gameable, one could post their reads, suicide, then flip as town and have their reads followed, players can demand that other slots suicide as an alternative to the lynch, this is a no-go.

The modkill achieves two purposes:
It enforces the mechanic, there are no night actions except for the factional night kill, role-blocking achieves nothing.
It prevents players from gaming the mechanic, a modkill is an instant-loss for that player, there's no point in abusing a mechanic for the sake of your team in mafia when you lose regardless, especially when one could consider that gamethrowing and infractable.

I'm not opposed to having replacements for when they are needed if a player needs to sub out, but I find it hard to make it work with the mechanic specifically.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by deathworlds

There's a few apparent options for alternatives to me, but they don't seem better than the modkill to me at least.
Going over 15 is replacement: This seems suboptimal depending on how one rules it, if the slot retains the posting requirements, then the slot cannot post for the remaining day. If the slot can post 15 more times, then they can post more content than the other slots in the game. Not to mention all the angleshootey nonsense that can come from replacements anyways
Going over 15 is suicide: Suicide in mafia is gameable, one could post their reads, suicide, then flip as town and have their reads followed, players can demand that other slots suicide as an alternative to the lynch, this is a no-go.

The modkill achieves two purposes:
It enforces the mechanic, there are no night actions except for the factional night kill, role-blocking achieves nothing.
It prevents players from gaming the mechanic, a modkill is an instant-loss for that player, there's no point in abusing a mechanic for the sake of your team in mafia when you lose regardless, especially when one could consider that gamethrowing and infractable.

I'm not opposed to having replacements for when they are needed if a player needs to sub out, but I find it hard to make it work with the mechanic specifically.

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Letting the slot post 15 more times would be completely unfair, and I wasn't suggesting to do that. However, isn't having a slot that cannot post for the rest of the day better than having a slot nuked? I guess the scarecrow of the modkill can make sense too, though. I will not die on this hill either, since chances are noone will go above the limit after having signed for the game, even though I am not entirely convinced modkills are the optimal way; it's still acceptable. You could probably call this a "me" issue at this point xD.

Everything else looks good. Approved. Do you want to be added to the Queue?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Marshmallow Marshall

Letting the slot post 15 more times would be completely unfair, and I wasn't suggesting to do that. However, isn't having a slot that cannot post for the rest of the day better than having a slot nuked? I guess the scarecrow of the modkill can make sense too, though. I will not die on this hill either, since chances are noone will go above the limit after having signed for the game, even though I am not entirely convinced modkills are the optimal way; it's still acceptable. You could probably call this a "me" issue at this point xD.

Everything else looks good. Approved. Do you want to be added to the Queue?

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Sure

So I ran a Monte Carlo simulation to calculate the EV Project expected winrate for the setup

And even making the most generous assumptions for town like:
- Town has two named town rather than 1 named town with knowledge of another town
- Named town always claim before they can be eliminated, and town always believes them and eliminates someone else
- Town always sees through a wolf's fake named town claim without the real named town having to CC
- Wolves always double stack their KP to kill an outed named town

The results were still rather unfavorable for town:
Town Wins: 239,858 (23.99% winrate)
Mafia Wins: 373,055 (37.31% winrate)
Triad Wins: 369,850 (36.99% winrate)
No one Wins: 17,237 (1.72% rate)

Under more realistic conditions (assume 1 named town rather than 2 in order to offset wolf fake claims + the named town dying without revealing the other town)
Town's EV winrate drops to:
Town Wins: 213,257 (21.33% winrate)
Mafia Wins: 392,140 (39.21% winrate)
Triad Wins: 380,218 (38.02% winrate)
No one Wins: 14,385 (1.44% rate)


Ultimately it's nearly impossible to have a balanced, low-power, multiball setup, with less than 14 players.


One solution could be to add a bunch of town to the setup, but finding 14+ players to play a low-power, multiball, ultralight postcap game is going to be nearly impossible.

So I talked with MM and we came up with the following proposal:

Keep the spirit of the setup with the ultralight postcap but make the following changes:
- No Multiball, just one mafia faction
- Remove the Cop and replace it with the Librarian. The Librarian is a fruit vendor but instead of fruit gives books (cannot choose what books they give, as that actually buffs the role)
- Mafia gets a 24/7 factional chat rather than just a night chat.

So essentially a 9v2 with 1 named town

The EV winrate in that scenario is:
Town: 406,278 (40.63% winrate)
Mafia: 593,722 (59.37% winrate)

Spoiler : Code :

Code:

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public class Library {

    public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {
        int[] counts = {0, 0, 0, 0};
        for(int i=0; i<1000000; i++) {
            counts[simulateGame(9, 2, 2, 2)]++;
        }
        System.out.printf("Town Wins:%d\nMafia Wins:%d\nTriad Wins:%d\nNo One Wins:%d\n", counts[0], counts[1], counts[2], counts[3]);
    }

    static int simulateGame(int town, int mafia, int triad, int namedTown) {
        int vt = town - namedTown;
        int hpr = namedTown;
        int opr = 0;
        int maf = mafia;
        int tri = triad;

        StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();
        int cycle = 1;
        while(!scumMaj(vt + hpr + opr, maf, tri) && (maf>0 || tri>0)) {
            sb.append(String.format("Day %d\n", cycle));
            sb.append(String.format("%d %d %d %d %d\n", vt, hpr, opr, maf, tri));
            // Day
            int target = selectDayTarget(vt, hpr, maf, tri);
            while(target == 1) {
                hpr--;
                opr++;
                target = selectDayTarget(vt, hpr, maf, tri);
            }
            if(target == 0) vt--;
            if(target == 2) maf--;
            if(target == 3) tri--;

            // Night

            sb.append(String.format("Night %d\n", cycle));
            sb.append(String.format("%d %d %d %d %d\n", vt, hpr, opr, maf, tri));

            if(opr > 0 && (maf > 0 || tri > 0)) opr = 0;
            else {
                int mafTarget = selectNightTarget(vt, hpr, tri);
                int triTarget = selectNightTarget(vt, hpr, maf);
                if(maf == 0) mafTarget = -2;
                if(tri == 0) triTarget = -2;

                if(mafTarget != -2) {
                    if (mafTarget == -1) {
                        tri--;
                    } else if (mafTarget < vt) {
                        vt--;
                    } else {
                        hpr--;
                    }
                }
                if(triTarget != -2) {
                    if(triTarget == -1) {
                        maf--;
                    } else if(triTarget != mafTarget) {
                        if(triTarget < vt) {
                            vt--;
                        } else {
                            hpr--;
                        }
                    }
                }
            }
            cycle++;
            sb.append(String.format("Dawn %d\n", cycle));
            sb.append(String.format("%d %d %d %d %d\n", vt, hpr, opr, maf, tri));
        }

        int t = vt + hpr + opr;
        if(maf == 0 && tri == 0 && t > 0) return 0;
        if(maf >= tri + t && tri < maf + t) return 1;
        if(tri >= maf + t && maf < tri + t) return 2;
        if(maf + tri + t == 0) return 3;
        if(maf == tri && maf >= tri + t && tri >= maf + t) {
            if(Math.random() < 0.5) return 1;
            return 2;
        }
        System.out.println(sb.toString());
        return -1;
    }

    static boolean scumMaj(int town, int maf, int tri) {
        if(maf >= tri + town) return true;
        if(tri >= maf + town) return true;
        return false;
    }

    static int selectDayTarget(int vt, int hpr, int maf, int tri) {
        int total = vt + hpr + maf + tri;
        int result = (int)(Math.random() * total);
        if(result < vt) return 0;
        if(result < vt + hpr) return 1;
        if(result < vt + hpr + maf) return 2;
        return 3;
    }

    static int selectNightTarget(int vt, int hpr, int enemy) {
        int result = (int)(Math.random() * (vt + hpr + enemy));
        if(result < vt + hpr) return result;
        return -1;
    }
}

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I wouldn't be opposed to most of those proposed changes, it'll effectively turn the setup into Mountainous but town get's a little extra treat for having to deal with the setup restriction.
The only change I believe would be detrimental is giving scum a 24/7 chat instead of a night one. By your own calculations scum already have a high win-rate, "nerfing" them by giving them a night chat instead of a 24/7 chat should bring them more in-line with a 50/50 split between win-rates

Quote:

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Originally Posted by deathworlds

I wouldn't be opposed to most of those proposed changes, it'll effectively turn the setup into Mountainous but town get's a little extra treat for having to deal with the setup restriction.
The only change I believe would be detrimental is giving scum a 24/7 chat instead of a night one. By your own calculations scum already have a high win-rate, "nerfing" them by giving them a night chat instead of a 24/7 chat should bring them more in-line with a 50/50 split between win-rates

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The ideal range for EV Project winrates for low-power standard setups is generally in the 30-40% range, so the setup as is should be fine either way from a balance perspective.

But we do want to start having it be the default on the site to have 24/7 chat for wolves rather than strictly night chat. It has many upsides and the only real downside is that it makes wolves stronger. But because it's such a huge QoL feature for wolves (akin to how Plurality Elimination is a huge QoL for town), we think it shouldn't be used as a balancing lever. That doesn't mean night-only wolfchat is necessarily bad, but it should be part of the very spirit of a setup when it is in one, not just a balance measure that could be replaced by another, especially one that would be less detrimental to QoL.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Lag

The ideal range for EV Project winrates for low-power standard setups is generally in the 30-40% range, so the setup as is should be fine either way from a balance perspective.

But we do want to start having it be the default on the site to have 24/7 chat for wolves rather than strictly night chat. It has many upsides and the only real downside is that it makes wolves stronger. But because it's such a huge QoL feature for wolves (akin to how Plurality Elimination is a huge QoL for town), we think it shouldn't be used as a balancing lever. That doesn't mean night-only wolfchat is necessarily bad, but it should be part of the very spirit of a setup when it is in one, not just a balance measure that could be replaced by another, especially one that would be less detrimental to QoL.

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Changes have been made, please feel free to give me more stuff to rules lawyer over for the definition of a "word" if you can think of any

@Lag @Marshmallow Marshall

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Originally Posted by deathworlds

@Lag @Marshmallow Marshall

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You have 11v2 town rather than 9v2 town, is that intended?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Lag

You have 11v2 town rather than 9v2 town, is that intended?

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whoops i didn't see that change in numbers you suggested, rectified.

Approved

It's not 13P https://www.mafiacafe.net/core/image.../ablobpeek.gif

What do you mean? It has always been 11P. Anyone pretending otherwise is a liar spreading doubleplusuntrue ideas!

(thanks lol)