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  1. ISO #1

    Totally not a setup but I need a place to scribble : )

    Player Improvement
    Self maximising system counter objective

    Spoiler : Training your Weaknesses :
    Training your weaknesses
    (Find citation again) A very basic and commonly used method of improvement is forcing yourself to rely on your weaknesses. For a physical parallel most will understand if you were right handed and wanted to become more coordinated in your left hand a common method is to do daily tasks like eating and brushing your teeth using your left hand which will improve overall coordination over time. This same concept is used in just about every competitive field by trainers and Mafia should be no exception. On the most basic level this can be done by some combination of avoiding use of the things you depend on and forcing yourself to play in a way you normally wouldn't. Here are some specific ideas although I will note it may be appropriate to try them on smurfs or in new communities to break the conflicts your meta creates (if you are an established player:

    Communication
    -Avoid or exclusively depend on a style of appeal you use to improve your persuasiveness
    -Limit the number of posts or the length of your posts to change your style and make your points more concise and palatable to your audience
    -Try playing with the social role you take in day chat from a 'leader' to a 'lurker' or aggressive to passive to learn new ways to influence your audience with varying levels of overt control and giving you more ability to control how 'visible' you are (useful for TPR/Scum on the soft end and HUGE growth potential for passive players attempting to take leadership in many respects)
    -Try depending more (or less) on interactions vs digging through iso's and hunting through the past
    -Play on multiple sites so you can not depend on your meta to prevent your lynch or your reading others meta to identify their alignment
    -Play with using RP and game flavor to dissociate yourself into a fake personality. Being able to do so can be of strong benefit both just enjoying the game as well as gaining advantages in what you can hide or do

    Scum Hunting
    -Eliminate using the scum hunting method you depend on to find new ways that work for you
    -Use only a scum hunting method you want to improve on to grow in that method maybe switching from town block / PoE to most likely scum or even association pools to force growth in an area you have little experience in
    -Avoid or exclusively use on style or type of tell. (One such example could be to prevent yourself from using mechanical analysis or meta reasoning if you find yourself exclusively dependent on either)

    Strategy
    -As scum mess with the level of coordination you take with your team
    -Play with different styles of taking notes. Try taking no notes at all, using different platforms or even change the depth of your notes and consider after each game what notes were actually 'useful'


    Identifying what works for you
    -Scale usefullness of hunting techniques (no bullshit quantify?)

    Meta-Meta
    The worst hole I have seen players fall into is when they actively argue their meta to counter reads on them. On a basic level if a player is 'always seen as scummy' there is a reason for that and to 'grow' as a player that individual would need to identify and work on that reason. Choosing instead to argue for all the other players in your community to read you differently is equal parts inappropriate and counter-productive to growing as a player in my opinion.

    Understanding your perspective bias
    Egocentrism results in a failure recognize the idiosyncratic nature of one's knowledge or the subjective nature of one's perceptions. There is a nice parallel someone could draw to the Dunning-Kruger effect on the back end of that scale but what this translates to in Mafia is that skilled players think in terms of others playing as skilled players. This creates the 'Too scummy to be scum' fallacy when a player identifies a scummy action but thinks in terms of what they would consider a reasonable action and decides no scum player would take such an action. Players must always be evaluated in terms of their own ability and the bias of what you consider reasonable must be considered. This is one fundamental reason WIFOM must be considered and why reads must be idiosyncratic.


    Counter feeling of 'caught but caught for bullshit reason' -If they caught you you triggerd something in their mind

    Analize what has worked and has not worked for you (Stop ate if it gets you lynched) (Stop using meta if it fucks you ect.)

    Spoiler : Progress list to focus path of growth :
    Progress list to focus path of growth]

    List features then move to categorize to restructure once framework of other 3 is devloped.

    Beginner-
    Basic understanding of voting, game mechanics, and roles

    Novice-
    Basic understanding of WIFOM, seeding, tells, traps, and simple mechanical hunting
    Can use and understands the commonly used mafia slang/abbreviations
    Grasps basic strategy's like RvS, and follow the cop

    Intermediate-
    Some ability to scum hunt past depending on Meta, Gut reads, and simple mechanical hunting
    Ability to avoid being scum read by default as town
    Understands the majority of mafia slang/abbreviations
    Comfortable enough to play as scum and work within a wolf team without going for a lurk win or screwing your team mates
    Some ability to lead a town and guide their focus
    Grasps general strategies
    Understands how to set up traps and gambits as well as how to pull information from their use without getting themselves lynched
    Can comfortably play many game types (Vanilla, PR heavy, Multiball, Mashups, Turbo, Real life, Skype, ect..)

    Advanced-
    Can evaluate setups to understand what tells to focus on and what strategies to use
    Can sometimes spot other players seeding and picks up on small details
    Ability to form reads through multiple methods and communicate those reads to other players effectively and persuasively
    Ability to manipulate how they are read by others as needed
    Effective at leading a town and guiding their focus
    Some ability to Power wolf, push misslynches, track town bias, and lead a scum team
    Ability to gambit effectively and set traps, has some understanding of more subtle maneuvers
    Can comfortably play on multiple sites

    Expert-
    Mastery of using Mechanical hunting, Wagonomics, and Theory crafting in tandem
    Strong understanding most scum hunting methods and when one should be favored over another
    Understands the majority of strategies and when they should be used
    Ability to peg scum players on D1 with some confidence
    Comfortable power wolfing, always tracks town bias and can push misslynches effectively
    Understanding of game tempo / timing to reveal information, use gambits, and push for days end lynch
    Ability to shade a player for lynch days in advance
    Strong understanding of how to track town Bias to manipulate a mislynch
    Ability to communicate subtly in day chat
    Can use Game Theory to identify optimal play or leverage sub-optimal play to submarine the town
    Has some understanding of the overall Mafia/werewolf community to include the sites and players of note

    Master-
    Can push a misslynch so effectively they are not even scum read for doing so post flip, sometimes gets town read by players for scum reading them because their reasoning is so good
    Innovates and creates effective strategies
    Ability to manipulate how others are read by others through various methods
    Ability to manipulate overall game moral as necessary
    Ability to recognize how days will play out before the day starts through experience
    Mastery of evading lynches
    Ability to recognize and read players in context to how they understand the game
    Comfortable pulling FPS gambits
    Regularly picks up on subtle communication between other players and seeding
    Wins fucking championships


    I don't think skill can be strictly quantified but I do feel that a list like this could be made and players could be roughly categorized in a general way. My goal in building this is to allow players to go through the list themselves and help them cut through the 'cherry picking' nature we all have to point to our good plays and say we are good.

    Technique to improve- Break your posts into deductive logic outlining what another poster said as well as your argument

    Devlemont Strategy
    -Read before posting
    -Slow down and post with intent
    -Break down arguments identifying their appeals, claim and warrant


    Spoiler : Town Play /////////////////////////////////////////////////// :

    Town Play///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
    Add tips section?

    Town Power Role
    One of the most critical things to question is how you will choose to 'hide' as a TPR. Many players would argue you should float as a 'middle read' to avoid being a strong NK target but you also have to consider if that deviates from your meta it could point to you being PR. It also runs the risk of making you lynchable which is a trade off for the NK protection you get for it.
    Similarly it can be an excellent idea to seed your role or your night actions to help deal with a counter claim or to reveal your actions post-flip to the clever eye. This also runs the risk of revealing yourself and is a trade off in safety.
    As a TPR you should also decided how you will deal with a scum claiming your role on the stand. You could CC outing yourself, Express disbelief pushing him to be lynched anyways which will somewhat indicate you, or do nothing and potentially allow him to escape. I personally favor between expressing disbelief and waiting to see how the town reacts as that you can always choose to CC later and it keeps your options open.

    Town Block
    This is a very effective way to focus your scum hunting by attempting to identify town as opposed to attempting to identify scum. As pointed out by asdasdac you are statistically more likely to correctly identify a town player than a scum player. Using this process also allows you to triangulate with your town reads. As you build your town block you will slowly close in on the remaining potential scum players creating a 'process of elimination' (or PoE.) This is an extremely popular (and in my opinion) extremely effective strategy I believe all players should at least understand. The risk is that if a wolf infiltrates your town block they dodge heat and can manipulate you in a direction of their design. This can be somewhat countered by you re-evaluating your town block periodically.

    Triangulating
    (Communication to use different part of brain) Find reference again
    While forming a town block it can be of great value to triangulate your thoughts and reads with those players in your town block. Every player will be able to see things a bit differently and sharing your reads with them while taking the time to understand theirs goes a long way to making the town block strategy much more effective. It also can help break bias created by wolves pocketing you.

    Process of Elimination (PoE)
    Usuially used in tandem with some form of Town Block strategy this refers to the basic process of elimination used to box the scum in a list for their systematic elimination. If done correctly by clearing town bit by bit you will be left with only scum. The risk it runs is that once a wolf has successfully gotten around your PoE they can avoid pressure and attempt to manipulate your reads so some level of re-evaluation is necessary from time to time.


    Evaluating Game state for hunting

    Seeding peeks/actions
    As a Town Power Role it can be very useful to 'seed' or hint at a night action you took. Doing so gives you a strong defense if you end up counter claimed by a scum in a 1v1 as well as allows the town to recognize what action you took after you died. This is particularly critical for a Sheriff or Alignment Cop. Its common practice for a sheriff to reveal their peek as their first read in a read wall or sneak in a hint that will be understood in hindsight (like "I town read this guy so hard I would town read his slot even if it got subbed out") It is a fine line to walk of seeding in such a way that you are not identified by the scum but its still obvious enough for people to notice after your dead. As a sheriff you can equally seed a scum read in a read wall easy enough.

    N0 Sheriff Peek Shelter
    In some setups a Sheriff or Alignment Cop will start D1 knowing 1 player is Town. If this is the case all town players should (preferably in their first post) claim an N0 town peek on a random player. This way when the sheriff dies everyone can look back at his first post and know who is a confirmed town without requiring the Sheriff to take his peek to his grave or risk revealing himself to voice who he checked. This is considered basic play and a general expected norm in pretty much every site I have played Mafia/Werewolf.

    Random Vote Stage (RVS)
    To play day chat there has to be reasoning to analyze. The objective of RVS is to create that reasoning from nothing (given a game starts with 0 posts to talk about). This is done by casting a vote on another player with as strong of reasoning as possible. As the pattern continues and votes are cast the reasoning gets stronger and less 'random' allowing to 'break RVS' which is where the game really starts. It is critical as town to push to break RVS as rapidly as possible because the day is limited and its where you get to hunt. Scum will want RVS to last as long as possible as their goal is to not be caught and get back to the night phase so they can kill. Just remember to do this you should always give a reason. A random vote does absolutely nothing to break RVS.
    Spoiler : Example :
    Sally votes John giving the reasoning that 'he smells funny'

    Camila votes John agreeing with Sally

    Santiago votes Camila pointing out he vote is opportunistic and she is just jumping on a train (At this point a small reason for a vote has been created out of nothing)

    It can also be of value to Gambit yourself as Lynch bait to break RVS (See Gambits)

    Alternative to RVS
    Instead of building information off vote reasoning you can generate reasoning by analyzing the setup and strategizing about how town should react to potential situations. This is particularly viable in setups that are Power role or Game mechanic heavy. One advantage of this is that it can help town identify situations that would help or hurt them while allowing players to get familiar with the setup. I have often seen debates over how a situation should be delt with break RVS faster than the random votes would have and the setup speculation can be a nice excuse to fake a 'scum slip' to gambit yourself as lynch bait in a way thats not damning.


    Follow the Cop
    This is pretty much cutting back into IIoA. Its when the players in a game shift into reliance on investigative results over analyzing the day chat to hunt for scum. This can be a highly sub-optimal strategy depending on the setup, although many games will be made in such a way an Un-Counter claimed TPR can be treated as semi confirmed so sheeping their reads and following their claimed actions can be a decent play.
    I will note that you should keep in mind that just because they are semi-confirmed town does not in any way mean their reads are 'good', it only means that you can trust them to have limited bias.


    Share Information
    As town I believe its generally better to reveal pertinent information you notice unless you have a reason not to. This is because it only takes 1 member of the Mafia team to notice something in order for them all to be aware while each individual town member has to notice that information to be aware. By doing so you reduce the information advantage a well oiled scum team shares.
    Reasons to hide information could include potential Town Power Role indicators, not alerting a potential scum you are onto them so they can keep slipping, or noticing a potential gambit in play that would be ruined if you revealed the it.

    Mutt and Jeff Technique
    (More commonly known as good cop bad cop interrogation technique.) It builds trust with a suspect leveraging their primal desire for protection from a threat making them more cooperative and fostering a desire for the suspect to please the 'Good cop.' I have found this to be extremely useful and can be used when a target player is under heavy pressure from others by you acting as the 'good cop'. A particular way I commonly use it is on a player that is at substantial risk of being lynched. By pointing out they will likely be lynched and after the fact with their alignment confirmed via flip, anything they say now holds great value you leverage a towns motivation to secure their win even after death while a scum player would actively want to avoid giving information and instead just focus on survival. In this way you get a win/win if they participate, a town indicator if they work hard to dump their minds for the town after they flip, and a scum indicator if they instead choose to go quiet or hardline focus on their survival. I will also note it can be of value to fit in some ego-up statements in the process to play off their personality bias while leveraging their situation which makes you more of the 'Good cop.'

    Dossier Technique
    Player moral has a significant effect on gameplay and the tells you can generate. It can be of value to overstate your confidence when interacting with a player in order to make them feel that Denial is pointless and instead asking questions with the assumption of you being correct. Something like "We know you are scum, you did play well; but why did you kill Bob N2 instead of Jake?" This kind of question works in an ego-up while preemptively invalidating denial in hopes the individual will validate the statement that they are scum by giving up useless information they have no reason to hide if they accept that denial is pointless. There is also the potential that you can push them into Lol-catting.

    Gambits Subsection? Add Notes/Tips?
    -Lynch bait
    This is essentially a trap play by allowing yourself to appear as an easy lynch target and see who jumps on you or to break RVS. The belief is that because scum have to make up reads they often go for low hanging fruit that will make an easy pressure target and that by making yourself appear as an easy lynch / obvious scum for a moment you can draw them out. This is a decent strategy but it has potential to backfire if the player attempting it is unable to dig himself out of the hole he created. Some plays will be viewed as ‘scum slips’ with the claim that it was a lynchbait play being viewed as scum trying to distance themselves from this slip. I have seen scum capitalize on a players lynchbait play to push through a mislynch and walk out blameless on the other side. When using this play its good to seed or leave some kind of crumb you can reference back to in order to show that it was a planned ‘slip’ to prevent this from backfiring and its generally a better play for players who are comfortable taking pressure and using their verbal kung-fu.

    -Fake Cop
    This is among the most common techniques. A player claims to be a Cop with a damning night peek on another player to gauge their reaction as well as the reactions of other players in the game. This can be an effective although somewhat disruptive play that usually derails any other town train in progress. Players doing this should consider seeding something to reveal it was a gambit after the fact and acknowledge the potential of the real alignment cop outing themselves by counter claim or their reaction to your gambit. I also highly recommend players consider what information they are trying to generate and what they can say to generate that information prior to making a play of this sort. I have honestly seen this sort of play hurt the town as often as I have seen it help them and I personally do not favor this sort of gambit.





    When trying to figure out the game take the time to question yourself when people post opinions that disagree from a position you support. There is something in Engineering control theory has something called a feedback loop. Basically if you remove negative feedback the loop always goes divergent and chaotic. A balance is necessary because it keeps you (or the town as a whole) from drifting to an extreme. Many great players struggle to move past their hubris resulting in occasional blunders they look back on and say “Man I should have known better”

    Weighing the value of a lynch
    This is a town play but can be used by scum to manipulate a lynch. The basic idea is that you can break down potential lynches into a raw evaluation of cost / benefit in order to identify the best lynch. At face value this sounds as simple as ‘Lynch the most likely scum’ but it gets more complicated if you are in a multi-ball or if you have multiple scum to choose between. Then you also have to consider the TPR potential of players or even their value to the town if you are wrong on them and they are left alive. And even 'what will this players flip solve for the gamestate'. These are some very basic concepts to keep in mind that may assist you in making these calls. I personally use this more on early days when there is low information.

    -Identifying a good D1 lynch target
    For your D1 lynch you should evaluate 3 areas on the target-
    ‘How certain are you that this slot is scum,’
    This is obvious and unfortunately the only thing most people think about when picking a lynch target.
    ‘What information will you gain from the players flip,’
    Think about association reads, how players pushed on the player, what
    ‘How valuable will this player be to helping you solve the game if he is town’
    By breaking this down you will be able to peg a good D1 lynch target. You need to force players to give reasoning on the train in order to create material you can work with the following day; this way if he flips town you can look at players reasoning behind their votes. A ‘policy lynch’ on a lurker or non-participating player is always a terrible idea D1 as that if it flips town you just killed a townie and gained absolutely nothing from that train.


    Objective:
    Clear yourself as town
    Pressure others for reasoning behind their reads (to build reads)
    Have accurate reads
    Explain the reasoning behind your reads / Persuade others to follow your reads

    Only a few town players in any given game will have accurate scum reads. The only way the town can win is if those players speak up and persuade other town players to believe their read enough to lynch the scum. Identifying scum and eliminating scum are 2 separate skills and one without other other is totally useless. If you play every game with perfect reads but nobody ever listens to you then you did not play a good game. You completely failed in a very important way.

    often people do have correct reads but end up getting lynched, and then complain about how no one listened to them and feel like they played a great game. but they are wrong. because they aren't looking at the big picture. if you fail to convey your ideas in a way that sways villagers minds, then your ideas are useless. and if you get mislynched, that is a failure on your part.

    Night Feedback Analysis
    This is using raw feedback information to break down the game into logical reasoning that gives pieces to solve the puzzle.

    So in this hypothetical game we can make a few solid assumptions using just these 2 charts. From the starting point we know that there is a role blocking PR in the game but we do not know if it is a Mafia or Town PR.
    1- The night kill on D3 was targeting Bob but redirected to Sally. This means that Bob cannot be the mafia.
    2- On Day 2 there was no factional kill and Joe was role blocked. This suggests 3 things.
    A- Joe could have been attempting to perform the factional kill and was role blocked preventing it
    B- A lynch on Joe ‘could’ verify the alignment of the escort/consort. If Joe flips mafia the escort is potentially town.
    C- The doctor healed the target that was attacked
    3- On Day 1 there was only 1 bussed feedback claim. This suggests one of 3 situations
    A- The Bus Driver swapped himself with John
    B- The bus driver swapped John with Travis (Who was factional killed, This would suggest John was targeted for the kill N1 and could not be mafia.
    C- The other person that was bussed withheld the feedback
    By breaking down these night actions and their implications conclusions can be drawn that provide greater insight into the game state.


    XXXX
    Correlation does not equal causation but correlation can still be used to predict. If more people have colds and ice cream sales are low they may not cause etch other but the lurking variable of season temperature may alter both factors allowing them to still predict etch other to some degree through correlation


    Spoiler : Scum Play //////////////////////////////////////////////// :
    Scum Play//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

    Track town bias-
    If you do nothing else the most critical thing you can do as scum is to track towns bias. Team Scum’s biggest weapon in day chat is that they are informed and at the end of the day that allows a coordinated scum team to manipulate the direction of a lynch. By understand what players a town has expressed willingness to lynch you can manipulate the direction of the overall town as well as the individuals. You will know you can poke them on a town they have expressed a scum read on and it will draw push towards a TvT. Understanding a large portion of town players have expressed willingness to lynch or scum reading a player will allow you to set that player up as the days lynch and through manipulation of individual bias you can line up potential lynches in advance. Its key to keep in mind that the vote count does not matter- As a wolf the only thing that matters is where the town votes.


    -PR Claim
    The most basic (and arguably the easiest and most effective) gambit you can pull as a wolf is to claim to be a power role on the stand. In my opinion this is not done nearly enough and is especially effective if you have planned ahead and seeded your claim earlier in the game. It puts the real TPR’s in the position of choosing between:
    1- Express disbelief in your claim pointing that they ‘may’ be the TPR
    2- Counter claiming which outs themselves (which is good for your team if you get lynched or if you can shift the lynch on them it prolongs your life for a day and you can LOL cat)
    3- Staying silent and giving you a pass for the day
    Every one of these options is great for you as scum and it puts the town in a much worse position. The ‘meta culture’ of a site should be considered as it greatly influences how players respond to such plays.

    -Cute Fuzzy Kitten Defense
    Basically it’s a bid for sympathy with a scum claiming some insane role and (hopefully) with town assuming that there is no way any scum in their right mind would claim something so absurd. This is pretty entertaining to do but depends on town to read and defend you as 'too scummy to be scum' which can be hit or miss while also depending on specific setups to be viable.

    -Slip Town
    Some people will hunt for town slips and you can manipulate this by presenting a plan or talking about something that you would obviously know if you were scum. Things like how scum chat functions or the roles scum could receive work although I have had more success arguing some idea or strategy that hinges on a misunderstanding that will help clear you.

    Spoiler : Night actions and PR hunting :

    Kill selection
    In general I place town in 1 of 3 categories: Pocket (which expands my ability to manipulate town), Lynch (Keeping the lynch off your team and saving your NK), NK (Eleminating potential TPR’s and strong players there is not enough town bias against) I always think in these terms and usually run a section in my notes tracking this. It is also worth looking at players bias when considering the NK. Killing a player who is against multiple wolves eliminates 1 potential vote if one of them got waggoned and you can look at others bias on that player to identify if they are not viable for a lynch. Targeting in such a way can also help avoid TPR interference because you are not gunning down Town Leaders.

    No Kill
    I feel this is not done nearly enough but is a very good play in a ‘Mislynch and loose’ situation where town lacks PR’s that can take advantage of additional night phases. By killing a townie you just stack the odds further in favor of the town to make a successful lynch. If your team has the numbers to fight it out or the player ability to do so I would highly recommend this as a play. It can also be a very valid strategy if the only town power roles function to counter your actions. Things like Bodyguards or Trackers/Detectives get nerfed into being simply a citizen with a claim which can be of value if your team is comfortable slugging it out in day chat.

    RNG Kill
    This functions well to break any ability for town to identify some motive or reasoning to your kills but your sacrificing strategic advantage to eliminate the towns ability to use strategy. I especially favor this as a method when the town has multiple players who are overthinking kills and drawing bad conclusions (although you should recognize that the same ratio of RNG could land a bad conclusion on one of your team)

    Target empty slot
    I rarely see this done but I feel it’s a very strong play. It kills towns ability to apply any reason to the kill while also denying them a slot that would step in with a fresh perspective. I especially favor this as a kill target when as a scum team things are going the way we want because a fresh view can shake up the game.

    LYLO/MYLO considerations

    PR Hunting
    A critical part of wolfing is identifying and eliminating the town power roles. Here are some things I use to help me in this process:

    Playing very softly in the early game
    One tell I have found reliable is when players intentionally hold back thoughts and avoid confrontation. This speaks to a survival focus and a desire to avoid attention that is in line with players who feel their life holds greater value; potentially because they have a night action.

    Speaking from the perspective of their PR
    Occasionally I have seen PR's speak strongly from the perspective of their role. Pushing ideas such as avoiding dictating PR actions or advocating town center their focus around the potential of a PR action are both things I have seen PR's do multiple times.

    Drastic unexplained changes in reads
    Things like an alignment cop check or a doc who saved a player from being attacked may immediately make them change their read but when they express it there may be a significant break between their thought process and their reads (Lack of consistency in reads indicator).

    Slips / Seeding / TMI
    You can sometimes identify when a PR seeds their peeks or actions. You can also sometimes identify TMI slips (Knowledge of Impossible Information)



    Spoiler : Team Composition and styles of play :
    Team Composition / Wolf play styles
    The best wolf teams I have seen are usually made up of a variety of play styles. Most players just have 1 style they use but if you or others on your team have the chops to use different play styles it is of great value to consider which style will help your team the most.

    The Deep Wolf:
    This playstyle generally fits the type of wolf that infiltrate's the town block and makes themselves strongly town read. I often see it the natural style of players who have great charisma and work hard to copy their town game as a wolf. The risk in this play style is generally that this type of player can forget they are a wolf and work so hard to be town they can hurt their team.

    The Power Wolf:
    This type of wolf generally is seen by the town as a town leader. They are usually (But not always) widely town read and is a play style taken by strong and capable players. An effective power wolf can strongly manipulate lynches and the town focus but their downside is when they flip they give the town lots of association indicators. This usually means they need some level of bussing to cover their team.

    The Town Equity Spender:
    In my opinion this style requires a high level of skill and is also the most effective. Wolves who are very comfortable under pressure can constantly work to gain town equity and then 'spend it' to push the scum teams agenda. As Thingyman points out in his guide there are no awards for being the most town read as a wolf, you simply want your team to win. The disadvantage of this play style is that overtly wolfy actions can be used to analyze quite a bit post flip and blowing town equity after working for town cred can very much make you a target for a night action.

    The Lost Wolf:
    This is a mechanically established wolf that does not know his own team. Its one of the most difficult and complicated playstyles that requires the wolf to be scum read enough that their team does not want to kill them and flagging their team while town read enough to not be lynched. They also have to balance the scum hunting they do to find their team with the scum hunting they voice with the town.

    The Lurk Wolf:
    This is usually the default for less experienced players and those who are not comfortable wolfing. The benefit is they can usually take less pressure in the early game and if they are lynched their flip will generally reveal less association tells simply because of their low posts and low substance. This type of play can have some mild benefits but usually just depends on the town not looking their way.

    The Excessive Busser:
    This is a negative play style I have seen where a wolf busses his team mates into oblivion needlessly. I usually see it in less experienced yet skilled players who are not comfortable as team scum.

    The Cry for help wolf:
    Of all the play styles this one is the most detrimental to a team. Some inexperienced wolves depend on their team mates to keep them alive and loose focus of the team win condition, and instead prioritize their survival. They can easily hurt their team while they go down.

    In general I feel its always good to have a Deep Wolf and either a Power wolf or Town equity spender if your can manage it. The deep wolf is best as the teams strongest power role given it insulates them from being killed while the high visibility wolf is best as a low value PR or vanilla. It can also be of value to decide early as a team if your going to go aggressively to sweep the town or if you want to play more conservatively for the long game (Although some level of both can be accomplished and it may be optimal.)


    Spoiler : Alingment indicator manipulation :
    Bussing
    A common and somewhat necessary practice is to bus team mates to post flip you are not implemented. Buss to hard and you risk drawing focus to your team mate or yourself while if you buss too soft it will just look fake. There are a few things I think about when bussing:
    -Doing it early in the day phase allows for it to loose focus and mitigates the risk of it spinning out of control into a lynch
    -Decide in advance if you want to Push but then resolve or if you want to push and then hold position. Pushing but then resolving is probably the favored method I see used because it avoids creating a real train and allows a scum player to Buss but evolve into a town/null read but it holds less post flip value
    -The value of using your vote on a Buss is to break mechanical hunting
    -There is no real value in town players scum reading your team mates. I see many players work so hard for town cred they screw their team and town credit does not matter post game. Always remember you are a wolf and try to avoid imitating your town game in ways that hurts your team.

    -Deep Wolf Hard Bussing
    This is a particularly high risk high reward scum play that helps counter many scum hunting techniques. The idea is to hard bus a team mate to an extreme. Without a TPR stopping you if you hardcore championed the lynch of another mafia you will have an extreme unaligned tell between yourself and your team mate. I have rarely seen town reason around such a play when its done properly but doing it creates a WvW and can place you in a 1v1 which hurts your chances of establishing a TvT. A few things I believe players should focus on leading up to such an action:
    -Have progression natural leading up to the hard buss or leverage it off a slip. The last thing you want to do is TMI slip while lynching your partner
    -Keep in mind the bussed players position. If they are already going down at the time of the hard buss it can be easily reasoned around
    -Its good to have the hard bussed player buss other wolves or chainsaw defend town players for the post flip analysis
    Spoiler : Example :
    https://forum.throneoflies.com/t/darling-in-the-franxx-sfm-game-over-mafia-win/87703/11863
    D3 Aelin places herself in a 1v1 CC against Wiisp after bussing him all game resulting in his lynch. All TPR were identified at this point and his flip basically guaranteed the win as that it would be nearly impossible to ever WIFOM around such a play with no TPR to break it with night checks.


    Split team positions as scum while bussing and reading
    In general I recommend splitting your stances on reads while you bus. The objective is to disassociate in case of a flip and in general players jump to a TvS assumption post flip so by splitting your positions you hurt any aligned hunting mechanical or inductive/subjective methods while also broadening the pushes your team can make organically against the town.

    Seeding aligned indicators with town
    Many wolves focus on bussing but it is equally (If not more) important and much less risky to make yourself appear aligned with town players. Actions such as chainsawing pushes on them, awkwardly interacting with them and voicing bad town reads on them can go a long way to paint them if you flip. I personally believe this is a very effective strategy that is highly neglected by the player base.


    Seeding distrust/ setting up lynches in advance
    Especially when Power Wolfing I have found it best to seed distrust on a player over an extended period of time. Rather than hard pushing them for a lynch in 1 day it can be more subtle and effective to progressively shade them to other players who are slightly suspicious until enough distrust is built up that they can be lynched. I have been able to use this effectively to take a player from being hard town read in a town block to being lynched over the course of a few days and it also holds the advantage that although you are driving the lynch you just have to wait for some townie to bite and push the train for you so they catch the post-flip shade. If done correctly its very difficult to identify a player doing this.

    Notes as scum-
    Town Bias
    Pocket, Lynch, Kill

    Agenda Power Wolf plays
    Divide and Conquer
    Night action selection - RNG, Killing empty slot

    -Catering bussing to how most influential town members play (or one you wont kill), measure town pockets

    Countering Wagonomics
    Split positions as scum when bussing

    Optimal use of night chats

    Objectives:
    Clear yourself as town
    Identify and target who will be your enemies
    Pressure others to discredit them and hinder their ability to convince others to follow their reads

    No mens-reya (too dumb to crime) defense legal strategy



    General Strategy tips:
    -First impressions are lasting make a good one. Focusing on things that are 'read as' townie helps so making some kind of effort post early can set you off on the right track. Once you are suspected it just gets worse as you get more attention.
    -Identify what players will be the town leaders and mirror their positions with original thoughts. In general players think "Same Perspective = Same Alignment" so confirming their bias works great to buy town credit and can also be used to push their bias. You want to be town read but you mostly want to be town read by the town leaders.
    -If you make a mistake it helps for you to be the one to point it out. Doing so allows you to control how it is viewed and I generally find that town is much less likely to scum read a behavior when its pointed out in such a way. You can also get in front of some slips by calling them gambits or reaction tests, maybe with disappointment nobody bit.
    -Avoid giving hard reads if you are less capable as a player. Nobody will ever fault you for not being confident and doing so prevents the town from locking you down on positions as well as challenging your confidence vs your read.
    -Ask town for their reads when you want to manipulate them. Understanding their bias is critical and there is nothing scummy about asking for it.
    -Don't lie if it can be avoided. I have seen many wolves lynched for dumb lies they never needed to make.


    Estimate the strength of your reads
    Too scummy to be scum


    MM Doublethink- I've had this thought and decided to share it here, both for the sake of sharing something interesting and to know if it made sense.
    Given that scum can be caught by perspective "slips", or more exactly perspective dissonances, and given that those dissonances are quite common, the concept of doublethink is interesting for successful scumplay. The possibility of convincing yourself that you are town and do not know the scum, even though you have read your rolecard, could prevent perspective dissonances. Therefore, "fooling yourself" while remaining in control (to push mislynches instead of teammate lynches, for instance) could be the key to the most natural and effective form of scumplay ever. You'd basically have to be O'Brien for the duration of the game. That seems... interesting.

    Divide and conquer
    This is exclusively a scum play and arguably something scum should always try for in day chat. The idea is to identify players bias and try to divide the town into two or more groups playing their bias and grudges against etch other while ‘pocketing’ players to increase your influence over day chat.

    -Identifying Confirmation Bias and splitting the town
    So what you want to look out for here is players grudges and their reads on other players. Keep track of who thinks what about who and play that to your advantage. Also watch for how players are reading other slots. If you notice Player A scum reads player X and puts a lot of value in connecting contradictions to scummy behavior then include some contradiction in your read of player X. This will help pull player A onto this train or if you are not starting a train it could push him over the edge to really gunning for that player. Generally speaking you just need to split the town into two or more groups and then you can start to kill the town off one by one maintaining a balance of power between them and keeping you in control of the situation.

    from a wolf perspective, you realize that you have to pick your targets carefully. you can't be on good terms with everyone; as you said, you have to lynch villagers. and often the people you lynch will be among the first to figure you out and suspect you. so you have to balance your targets carefully, because its dangerous to make enemies as a wolf. you pick someone to lynch so that when they turn against you, you know you will be able to overpower them and get them lynched over them getting you lynched

    -Pocketing players
    This is the other half of the play. You need to get a few players to pretty much read you as cleared town and follow your reasoning. For every player you pocket you greatly increase your ability to control the day lynch. Even if you are not able to fracture the town if you can simply pocket 2 players you will immediately have massive influence over the town and put yourself in an excellent position. The simplest way of doing this is to watch for when a player gives away soft tells that they scum read a slot and then follow up behind them with much more solid reasoning along the same lines. This will get them to think that you are thinking from the same perspective and objectively make them trust you more. It also helps if you see them in 1v1 situation to pressure the other player (as opposed to defending them.) Players get cautious when someone else is defending them but they get along well when there is a ‘common enemy’ between you two.

    Another large advantage to playing in this way is that it gives you purpose in day chat so instead of just hanging around trying to not get lynched you have focused goals that provide a reason to create content as well as have passion in your posts. Its possible to get caught for having this kind of intention in your plays but in my experience it is pretty rare.



    Spoiler : Misc :
    Useful Bits Shit name?
    Always vote self preservation
    If you are town you are usually the only player you know for absolute certain is town so if you are being wagoned and in danger of becoming the lynch vote on the counter train to keep yourself alive. If you are scum even if the counter train is a wolf its good to end up voting self pres to help clear your wolf mate post flip.


    Never express you will not lynch while you vote
    I can not stress this enough. The power of your vote is a threat to lynch, the moment you vote but express you are not willing to lynch your vote means nothing. Your vote is one of the few tools at your disposal to add pressure and weight to your voice and you should never give that up as Town. I generally always voice my votes intention Change to express reasoning with vote/add more scenarios for voting

    Game tempo- Setting a days lynch
    Note taking
    -Writing to use different part of brain
    LYLO and MYLO
    Kingmaker play- setting yourself up to control end result. Always go for or go meta
    WIFOM
    Getting Read as (gut read indicators)
    The Explanatory Gap
    Proper use of Codes
    This is the all too familiar situation of posting a code to solve on the next day in order to confirm that you are still you. In multiple games I have seen someone post a weak code that the disguiser then solves falsely confirming themselves as ‘not disguised’. In a word a bad code can do more harm to the town than not making a code at all. Keep in mind that the scum player does not have to actually solve your code at all, he only needs to convince the town that he has solved it. Here are some examples of Bad Codes:
    _ __ _ _____ = I am a robot; This could very easily be faked with any phrase that matches this letter count.
    26535 89793 23846 26433 83279 = a section of pi in math; Kinda clever but simply google searching breaks it along with any other string of numbers. Even if its not what you meant someone could just lie and say it was.
    Pretty much anything math related
    Anything using a cypher program; These are very easily broken with some programs made specifically to do so
    Data can be taken from a players games and analyzed to identify meta trends.
    These trends can then be compared to data taken from a current game to identify specific factors of a player such as alignment


    No clue where to put the shit
    Focus on having fun- Avoid pushing to draw emotional reactions
    (Liers Delight) factor of enjoying Mafia
    Potential shit for theory giggles
    -Sociometrics- Weighted social networks system
    Cam mafia/ Real life shit
    Unethical- Macro meta crunching, Sociometrics, Not looking at your role, Not revealing tells on players with meta,

    Reason to see both sides:
    Engeneering control theory has something called a feedback loop
    If you remove negitive feedback the loop almost always goes divergant and chaotic
    Balance is imoportant because it keeps you from drifting to an extreme. If you only listen a postion you support that position will only be amplified until its screaming its position as opposed to presenting logic

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJZv3z7FOt0
    Detective interview (This is a non listed interview and I would appreciate not poking the interview in youtube comments or distributing the address)

    -easier to manipulate interaction dependent players by controlling tone of situation they loose site of the big picture
    Last edited by Helz; September 12th, 2021 at 11:09 AM.

  2. ISO #2

    Re: Totally not a setup but I need a place to scribble : )

    Don't you vandalize this beautiful section with stuff such as "logic" or "reasonings"! Only brainless sheeping allowed here :P.
    (Moved to FM Discussion)
    Quote Originally Posted by The Lawyer View Post
    Besides your lamp and your refridgerators, do you find anyone else suspicious?
    Quote Originally Posted by oliverz144 View Post
    it looks like many, e.g. MM and lag, suffered under the influence of paopan. However there is a victim: frinckles. He left the path of rationality and fully dived into the parallel reality of baby shark, king shark, and soviet union pizzas.
    Spoiler : The meaning of life :

  3. ISO #3

    Re: Totally not a setup but I need a place to scribble : )

    Lol!

    So I am gona be fumbling about dumping notes here then working on stuffs. I normally do this portion in Excel but I wanted to see if its easier while I can see how the formatting goes before trying to tackle the part where everything gest combined, formatted, referenced and probably rewritten.. Feel free to contribute or ask about anything you guys want

    -edit
    For those interested this was the broad concept I drew up in 2016 https://ibb.co/L5tC0VN
    Last edited by Helz; April 6th, 2021 at 12:32 AM.

  4. ISO #4

    Re: Totally not a setup but I need a place to scribble : )

    I swear. Every time I start doing this again I step back, look at it and my noodle melts because there is just so fucking much shit I have no idea where to start >.<

    Now I get to think to myself, Once this piece is done I am probably at the 60% mark

  5. ISO #5

    Re: Totally not a setup but I need a place to scribble : )

    “Identifying what works for you”

    Only thing 90% of people read and then just use confirmation bias because someone you thought u were scum reading for a good reason flipped scum even tho ur reason was dumb
    Have you ever heard the tragedy of Darth Jar Jar the wise?

  6. ISO #6

    Re: Totally not a setup but I need a place to scribble : )

    Quote Originally Posted by aamirus View Post
    “Identifying what works for you”

    Only thing 90% of people read and then just use confirmation bias because someone you thought u were scum reading for a good reason flipped scum even tho ur reason was dumb
    Well then, be your own worst critic and listen to constructive criticism from others. If you're not ready to do that, you're probably not ready to read a long guide either, so this is a non-issue.
    Quote Originally Posted by The Lawyer View Post
    Besides your lamp and your refridgerators, do you find anyone else suspicious?
    Quote Originally Posted by oliverz144 View Post
    it looks like many, e.g. MM and lag, suffered under the influence of paopan. However there is a victim: frinckles. He left the path of rationality and fully dived into the parallel reality of baby shark, king shark, and soviet union pizzas.
    Spoiler : The meaning of life :

  7. ISO #7

    Re: Totally not a setup but I need a place to scribble : )

    Quote Originally Posted by Marshmallow Marshall View Post
    Well then, be your own worst critic and listen to constructive criticism from others. If you're not ready to do that, you're probably not ready to read a long guide either, so this is a non-issue.
    My hope is when its all done it will be more of a tool than a guide. Like people use a dictionary or something where it could be used to understand things while providing some understanding of whats out there. The size of this thing when its done will be moderately ridiculous for an article imo

  8. ISO #8

    Re: Totally not a setup but I need a place to scribble : )

    Quote Originally Posted by Helz View Post
    My hope is when its all done it will be more of a tool than a guide. Like people use a dictionary or something where it could be used to understand things while providing some understanding of whats out there. The size of this thing when its done will be moderately ridiculous for an article imo
    Sounds too black and white for FM tbh. The intent that is.

  9. ISO #9

    Re: Totally not a setup but I need a place to scribble : )

    Quote Originally Posted by Helz View Post
    I swear. Every time I start doing this again I step back, look at it and my noodle melts because there is just so fucking much shit I have no idea where to start >.<

    Now I get to think to myself, Once this piece is done I am probably at the 60% mark
    [COLOR="#FFFFFF"]>.<[/
    COLOR]!!!!


    is heWOwOElz having a mewental breakdown?!?

  10. ISO #10

    Re: Totally not a setup but I need a place to scribble : )

    Quote Originally Posted by Helz View Post
    My hope is when its all done it will be more of a tool than a guide. Like people use a dictionary or something where it could be used to understand things while providing some understanding of whats out there. The size of this thing when its done will be moderately ridiculous for an article imo
    I just read a few sentences below “Master,” UWOWU!!! I don’t use guides, I’m just like fuck this FUCK YOU FUCK YOU I WILL WIN, uWoWu HEWWO!!!

  11. ISO #11

    Re: Totally not a setup but I need a place to scribble : )

    Quote Originally Posted by aamirus View Post
    “Identifying what works for you”

    Only thing 90% of people read and then just use confirmation bias because someone you thought u were scum reading for a good reason flipped scum even tho ur reason was dumb
    Yeah. Thats a good part of why I wanted to come up with some formal process with methods and goals to improve. I feel like the question of 'how do I get better' is a subject nothing has answered so people end up doing whatever is comfortable..

    Quote Originally Posted by OzyWho View Post
    Sounds too black and white for FM tbh. The intent that is.
    Yeah, you probably have a point. There is also the issue that a huge portion of this is just 'how I see things' which is itself biased and subjective. I am almost certainly very wrong about at least something in a scope this large..


    Quote Originally Posted by theoneceko View Post
    [COLOR="#FFFFFF"]>.<[/
    COLOR]!!!!


    is heWOwOElz having a mewental breakdown?!?
    Lol.
    Its just my creative process. Whats here is bits from some 30 or so text files. There is still another 60 or so but many of them are redundant. Also a a good bit of this is stuff I wrote in 2015 or 2016 and my views have changed.

    All I end up doing is jumping around and hitting at little bits at a time but when I just look at the project as a whole its just kinda daunting. Sometimes just starting to move takes effort (for me at least) but once I get moving its good.

  12. ISO #12

    Re: Totally not a setup but I need a place to scribble : )

    Post so I have yet another place to scribble and make notes without having to look through that wall of text

    Spoiler : List :
    Self maximising system counter objective citations
    Techniques of eliminating a crutch or depending on a weakness for growth in education
    Relocate citations of mental process changing for verbal / writing with pragmatic focus
    Rewrite some deductive analysis model with functional problem example
    Host section?
    Find that 2+2 article on more likely to peg town for author


    Not taking section (And reference for different part of brain used in different forms of communication speaking/writing/typing)

    ORM for night kill selection as scum?

    Breaking read strategy's down between micro and macro?
    Last edited by Helz; May 12th, 2021 at 06:11 PM.

 

 

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