Alien: First Contact - town win!!

[Ragian]

Moronic? Sheesh. Calm down, Captain Bringdown. Excuse me for airing something in order to see where people stand. That's how I work and progress in a game. You can £$@& %&¤ with the condescending tone. What purpose does that serve?

[DirtyDishSoap]

Excepting the portion I wish to respond to:

Ragian wasn't even questioning the mass claim but the lynch

Actually Rage wasn't initially questioning Lynch vs. No Lynch. He asked people what they thought as good strategy and whether our power roles should claim. Perhaps saying he was talking about Mass claim initially is a bit of an inflation but it was actually you who brought up Lynch vs no Lynch:

Right. I'm out of jokes. And since we have like five days left of D1, perhaps we should get down to business.

I haven't really played a small game like this before and I was wondering what would be the best tactics. For instance, if we have a psychic and/or a security officer, would it make sense for town to know? Obviously, the Alien Queen would know too, so it might be the worst idea ever.

All I'm saying is that I'm not sure how to go about this. Anyone with brilliant thoughts?

I don't think mass claiming is a great idea in this, it's a cult set up so time is important. I know I'm an advocate of a no lynch but given the scenario if we don't try to lynch I think we might lose by day 3.

I really only brought that up because I was changing an earlier stance that I knew someone in here would have questioned. That's it.

@Mitch Sorry bud, but it's nothing against you personally, but it's something that has been echoed in just about every game I've been in with you and or have seen. Why you're choosing to get pissed at me and not the rest of the community is something I don't understand. Hate the game, not the player.

[IcePack]

We haven't heard much from Pikanchion, it would be nice to hear from him a little.

[strike wolf]

Voting someone based on perceived skill level vs belief in if they are actually scum is generally counterproductive.

[madmitch]

@ SW ,that is what really pissed me off, and to DDS I don't hate you man ,it just irks me that you want to get rid of me because of my playing skill.

[Ragian]

We haven't heard much from IcePack.

[IcePack]

We haven't heard much from IcePack.

You mean besides my thoughts / FOS on you? I haven't had much else to add to the conversation (yet), but I noticed besides pointing out the one rule correction, Pika hasn't really posted since the joke phase. Which is why I mentioned it.

The question is why are you trying to prompt me now? Because my FOS on you?

[DirtyDishSoap]

We have 4 days to determine the right course of action at this point which is why I haven't seriously voted yet. For the sake of that I'm getting rid of my joke vote.

unvote.

I have a love/hate relationship with cult.

[IcePack]

We haven't heard much from IcePack.

You mean besides my thoughts / FOS on you? I haven't had much else to add to the conversation (yet), but I noticed besides pointing out the one rule correction, Pika hasn't really posted since the joke phase. Which is why I mentioned it.

The question is why are you trying to prompt me now? Because my FOS on you?

Anyway, to advance my thoughts / more clearly state my position. I think debating about what we are going to do, pros and cons, etc isn't the smartest thing for town to be doing right now.
Without explaining why, I think mass claims are not the best foot forward. I have a short list of 2-3 people I'm keeping an eye on (currently) and hoping as we advance through the next few days, I can narrow down to the point where I'm ready to help lynch someone from a narrowed pool of players.

Also to clear up my earlier comment, I totally miss attributed the longer post by pika on page 2-3, so thats my bad. For some reason I thought it was someone else and noticed after read reading the thread.

[strike wolf]

Well with the day starting to draw short, I feel it's time to voice some more solid suspicions even if I would like to have gotten a bit more confirmation on the play style of at least one of these players before introducing the suspicion. So in no particular order

1. Skoffin-A little inactive and not much going on here just mostly some odd timing posting less than 2 hours after she was brought up as being quiet. Her return post also didn't deal with any particular players. Just a statement on mass claims and scumhunting which could easily be made to appear active without really doing much.

2. Ragian-the initial posts have me wondering but his reaction to my post seems like a natural human reaction. I would probably put him lowest on this list right now.

3. DDS-Some inconsistencies in how I expected him to play and going after the "weak" player rather than looking towards scum. More active than most and actively responding on both people and positions.

4. Pikanchion-It was said in a recent game most succinctly about how scum often try to appear to be the most helpful and that's how Pikanchion's posts have struck me so far. I am not exactly going to persecute him for a joke comment but I am semi-serious when it comes to math and mafia games not mixing. Math is cold hard facts. Cold hard facts are the easy ways of speaking truths in mafia without having to show one's hands on reads and therefore tempting avenues for scum to appear helpful without having to stick their necks too far out. Add in the rules clarification later, another easy scum move (point out the rules, look how helpful that is) and it's a weak case but it's there. This more than the others is the feelings I would have rather held onto and seen how he continued to react naturally without announced suspicion as once it's voiced the counter I'd expect scum to make is pretty similar to how town would naturally react so there's a high chance of a false positive in how he reacts in the next post. We are at a point in the day though where we cannot sit on our hands much longer on reads without pushing a last minute case which would give us minimal ability to change directions if needed.

[IcePack]

Here are my observations, as I'm less experienced in the forum version (I play more live mafia then anything, so its a bit different getting your reads here but the foundation remains the same). Also, I dont "know" any of you or your mafia habits, so I feel like I come into this untainted from previous experiences.

1) Ragain - my intial read on his posts had my point FOS to him (obviously). This was also to try drawing a read. I tend to agree w/ strike wolf here in general though the immediate counter "we haven't heard much from IcePack" also didn't help (imo).

2) madmitch - has the same reaction off Ragains initial post, but immediately accuses him of potentially being the queen. Follows up pika's post with "the only logical thing is to do nothing and wait until night fall". Makes a bigger issue w/ the DDS on unrelated topic.

3) Pikanchion - i had a similar reaction to him as strike wolf here, hard to put it more elequently then already has been. Other then the stats helpful post, and rules clarification later, really hasn't said much.

4) Samlen - mostly just lack of content. the only real comments were about lynch / no lynch debate that seems to be raging on elsewhere, but very minor participation so far.

5) In the same catagory as 4, I would put Skoffin probably. Add in what strike says, and DDS seemed to agree w/ this earlier as well. Looks like this might be the leading candidate to date.

---

So far I'm thinking strike and DDS are "likely" town based off what I've seen and read. Similar intuitions.

This really just has us needing to start the process of narrowing down the list. Since based on previous comments it seems we might have some minor consensus on this, I'm going to Vote Skoffin. I think any of the 5 listed *could* be, but this seems like a good starting point based on the two others feedback I see as potentially town.

[Pikanchion]

Chances are the Alien Queen would be doing one of two things on day one specifically. Either hiding to avoid being chosen for the lynch, or pushing for others to be lynched so that they are not.

Others have mentioned that Ragian appears to wish that the town formulates a plan or mass claim, and that this makes them look scummy etc. I'm honestly on the fence about this, sure the Alien Queen would be the one to benefit most from a mass claim (unless they get lynched as a result), but as was pointed out by strike wolf, this "should be obvious". The Alien Queen pushing for such things is a sure fire way for them to be caught out on the first day, so why would they do that? It is my opinion that regardless of your alignment somebody would only suggest these plans had they not thought much about the setup for themselves, and if they had thought about it they would not make the same suggestions, the town because they have worked out it is likely to make the town lose out, and the Alien Queen because they would have worked out that airing these ideas is likely to expose them. The town in general was clearly opposed to such things immediately after Ragian's initial post, and yet they continued to question and put forward similar suggestions throughout, and I can't decide whether these are the actions of somebody genuinely curious about the opinions of everybody else, or of scum, fishing for somebody else to misstep by agreeing with them.

The first post comes across as very much the latter, while the posts that followed felt much more like the former.

So let's split everybody into those hiding and those pushing for others to be lynched. (Listed in order of those most exhibiting the trait to the least.)

Hiders:

• Skoffin - Has made only one post so far, adding nothing that had not already been said to the discussion, and apparently as a direct response to claims of submarining.
• madmitch - Has made a few posts but said little, while several posts have been off-topic, albeit provoked.
• Ragian - Ragian I've talked about, and I would only categorise them as hiding for the reason that putting forwards half baked ideas and asking questions is an easy way to make it look like you are participating actively without actually bringing much to the table. Of course in this case it has only brought the spotlight upon them so... maybe not.
• Samlen - Hasn't posted all that much but their posts have been on-topic and generally said things not covered by others.

Those pushing for a lynch:

• IcePack - Has come across far more eager than others to FOS/Vote, and while they mention that they have a shortlist of 2-3 people that they consider suspicious, the list presented only hours later has 5 names on it, well over half the other players.
• srike wolf - Has begun to narrow down a list of who to vote for, and in deed was the first to do so. Their explanations are reasonable though.
• DirtyDishSoap - Doesn't really appear to be hiding (unless in plain sight), and is in favour of lynching (but hasn't really put forwards much of a case as for whom).

I would say Skoffin and IcePack are my two leading candidates for lynching currently, with Ragian as third. We do still have a while on the deadline, and voting people due to inactivity feels a bit harsh after only ~2 real-time days of non-joke stage discussion.

As a side note: what initially came across as a slight town-tell for me is that strike wolf is the only person to have addressed my lengthy initial post in any length themselves, and even though they were doing so in a post about who they found suspicious I can say with some confidence that they were not stretching to find reasons for mentioning me. ALL of the numbers in the first two paragraphs of the aforementioned post are entirely incorrect, and actually make the case for a mass claim look better than the reality. If they were trying to find reasons to list me this would surely be it. Then I thought a bit about it and realised that everybody would have read that post by now and yet there has not been a single mention by anybody that the figures are wrong... This ship must be filled with Biologists, eww. The correct values are 1.79%, 4.17%, 1.93%, 14.43%, and 12.5% respectively, by the way. I haven't been sleeping much lately...

[DirtyDishSoap]

I have no reason to argue with your math unless I believed the numbers to be way to out there. They seemed right given the game.

I can't address every player in here except a few. The game has thus far been slow, and there's not a whole lot of context to go off of currently that gives me any strong vibes over other players.

Skoffin - I'm sure she's submarining on this. Even though there's little information to go off for scum tells for D1, she has provided the least amount.

Ragian - The only scummish thing I can see of is the stance of being pro-ish for a mass claim when it's pretty clear that the con's outweigh the pro's heavily.

Madmitch - Sorry for this and it may be a weak argument, but mitch is an impossible read. I've made the case in the past that if mitch were to be scum, no one would be the wiser to know. In a combination of being our weakest player, he'd be the safest lynch, sadly. Sorry bud.

Other than that, the plethora of information that both Pika and Strike have provided are informative. I don't think either player is currently scum.
Sam has echoed the same thoughts as myself, I don't believe he is scum either.
Ice I can't get a read off of at this time.

If we can't come to a conclusion by the 27th, I will put my vote up for Skoffin as a candidate unless someone else brings up a more valid argument.

[strike wolf]

Yeah. I didn't check your math at all. I probably would have noticed if it was egregiously wrong but for the most part even now it's appearing in my mind not as numbers but as "ignore this%"

[Ragian]

No, IcePick, at the point I said that, you hadn't contributed more than Pika. I'm not butthurt because of a FoS. Calling me moronic and unable to see the obvious hurt most of my orifices, but apparently everyone is in agreement that I'm too thick to be the Queen anyway, so f*ck it.

@Pika, why are you calling me a hider? I've contributed more than most. Maybe you don't like me for my blatant stupidity, but surely I'm neither hiding nor lurking.

I have three-ish people on my list based on perceived scummyness and inactivity.

[IcePack]

No, IcePick, at the point I said that, you hadn't contributed more than Pika. I'm not butthurt because of a FoS. Calling me moronic and unable to see the obvious hurt most of my orifices, but apparently everyone is in agreement that I'm too thick to be the Queen anyway, so f*ck it.

@Pika, why are you calling me a hider? I've contributed more than most. Maybe you don't like me for my blatant stupidity, but surely I'm neither hiding nor lurking.

I have three-ish people on my list based on perceived scummyness and inactivity.

Tell me where I called you moronic? Go read the thread again before you make an ass of yourself.

In regards to Pikas comment

has come across far more eager than others to FOS / VOTE, and while they mention a shortlist of 2-3 that they consider suspicious, the list they presented hours later has 5 names on it

As a townie, on a D1 were there hasn't been much going on in trying to get some activity flowing so we have more data to go off of as the vote gets closer. If I was the Queen, I would be sitting back not caring whether there was a lynch or not (whether that means no activity, or just going with the flow, etc) but generally, trying to find someone who looks suspicious is a good trait at this point in the game.
My list of 2-3 remains, as I was thinking and saw strikes post (since I normally play live it's a bit diff) I thought it's a good idea to put people generally into categories. While there is 5 on my "could be list" in my head at least, I've narrowed it down to 2-3 that I'm more suspicious of them the rest. Currently, that is highlighted by Skoffin. Whether or not that leads somewhere is TBD, but it's a good place to start.

Regarding the incorrect maths, it's not something I excel at nor pretend to be that interested in. I believe it's in towns interest to try and lynch, so outside of getting the general idea for what the post / person was aiming to accomplish / trying to get across, i didn't verify the info they were pushing.

[Pikanchion]

@Pika, why are you calling me a hider? I've contributed more than most. Maybe you don't like me for my blatant stupidity, but surely I'm neither hiding nor lurking.

Ragian I've talked about, and I would only categorise them as hiding for the reason that putting forwards half baked ideas and asking questions is an easy way to make it look like you are participating actively without actually bringing much to the table. Of course in this case it has only brought the spotlight upon them so... maybe not.

Look back at your posts thus far, you have proposed several ideas without much reasoning to accompany them, relying on the town to debate their merits for you. You haven't once disagreed with somebody else's reasoning or brought up arguments of your own, rather asked people to expand on their own reasoning. I don't think you're being stupid, but you are being lazy, take these posts for instance:

@Pikanchion, cheers for the breakdown. I'm not a math kind of person, so I'd be more worried with how we went about claiming if we were to claim. If the Alien Queen claims last, she'd be able to claim whatever fits the scenario (e.g. she could claim psychic if no one has claimed that before). If we were to claim, it might not be a bad idea for any psychic or security officer to claim science officer, I think.

Again, I don't necessarily think that a mass claim is counterproductive despite giving information to the Alien Queen. Whoever claims towards the end of the mass claim will undergo the most scrutiny given they've seen all the other roles. Moreover, if there are two science officers left and everyone has claimed science officers, they would claim psychic and security officer in order to fool the Alien Queen. These are the things that appeal to me in terms of a mass claim.

You float the idea that the order of claims is important in the first, but it's more of a passing thought and you make no attempt to expand on it. After 24 hours of nobody really responding to that point in particular, you do finally expand a little more on it in the second of the posts I quote, but my point is that you could have done this initially, or even expanded further than you did.

Besides, I was categorising everybody into binary categories, and unless I missed it you've not even stated whether you are in favour of lynching or not, so I could hardly place you in the "pushing for a lynch" side.

[Samlen]

Little weird we have people claiming to have a short list of 'suspicious' people and then they don't post it right away. I would actually think most of us understand mafia enough to know that not posting often would lead to being suspicious. I read skoffin as a bored science officer. I'll tentatively read strike as town and the rest as possible alien-queen candidates.

[IcePack]

Little weird we have people claiming to have a short list of 'suspicious' people and then they don't post it right away. I would actually think most of us understand mafia enough to know that not posting often would lead to being suspicious. I read skoffin as a bored science officer. I'll tentatively read strike as town and the rest as possible alien-queen candidates.

Not all that strange when some of them are just reads on people. But as others have said, frankly some people aren't really proivding much to work off of. Others might say something that trigger a red flag, but not something ready to go grab torches and pitch forks over.

When something comes up or really gains momentum / more information comes out that supports those positions, you can provide the evidence at that point. Again, why would someone from town want to blast people unknowingly and provide alien queen w/ fodder to use to disceminate false accusations by bandwagoning onto when its weaker and not a strong case? It prevents issues by holding onto some suspicions until further evidence can be provided by actions.

[strike wolf]

He was responding to me on the moronic bit. I apologize. I do respect you overall Rage but I stick by what I said about your idea. The best of us can have stupid ideas.

So the gauge I'm getting as far as most popular cases in order of support most to least:

1. Skoffin
2. Rage
3. Pikanchion


the order I would currently support a lynch:

1. Skoffin-She has shown she can be useful when active but as of right now, she at the very least appears to need a prod to go that way. Along with above mentioned reasons, I'm more than happy to lynch her.
2. Sam-The Rage case is solid enough but I'm not feeling it at the moment. Sam on the other hand gets my attention for similar reasons as Skoffin. He wasn't quite as blatant popping up right after being called like Skoffin but his show up post did mostly feel like filler with not much added to the game (you want to call me town? Join the line.)
3. Pikanchion-I would hate to lose a good, level headed player if I am wrong but his post earlier today didn't totally mitigate my feelings. The first paragraph was WIFOMy. The rest is solid enough but he never really directly addressed concerns.

I'm not going to put together a town list as it would be quite short unless I include myself and then only slightly short. However I will put up a WNVF (Will Not Vote For) list for those that it would take a fairly major development to convince me on. In no particular order:

1. Icepack-He's helpful and hasn't done anything to really trigger any alarms with me to date.
2. Mitch-Honestly, I don't like lynching Mitch D1. D2 may be different depending on how D1 goes but he's too easily an easy mislynch this early in the game.
3. Myself-Unless you expect me to suicide.

[Skoffin]

Hurrblurrblur!

Alright to address several things: I think you guys need to make a distinction on whether you think I am deliberately submarining as a form of tactic, or just submarining in general as it does change how I would respond to those points. If the notion is that I'm scum using it as some form of tactic, the issue with that is that I am currently in three games at the moment and I generally post in them around the same time. My activity certainly has dipped in the last week, but across these games I appear around the same time; so unless the notion is that I am scum hiding in all three games it doesn't make sense. Now if the notion is that it's not necessarily scummy but better to get rid of someone inactive, while I certainly can't argue about the inactive part, that doesn't come across as bad play and somewhat scummy itself. If your concerns are about inactivity then the best course of action for town is to ask for replacement and not to waste the towns most valuable action sorting out a problem a mod can take care of.

In any case, I have my own top suspect for now; forgive me if it sounds a little far-fetched.
Pika is a new player here, however we have known each other a while now. I am essentially his only friend on this site, and he seemed to have been keen to play a game again - which is why I find it suspicious that he seems to be placing me as one of his top suspects, and hinting towards lynching me. Pika is not like Fircoal for example - who is more than happy to lynch his friends the first chance he gets, even for lulz - Pika comes across the sort who would prefer to avoid it D1 if possible. Hence why I find it weird that he would advocate lynching the only person on this board that knows him - and most importantly, the only person here who has ever played a game with him and is potentially familiar with his tells. Town Pika has no real reason to lynch me 'based on activity' and no real merits, scum pika has every reason to get rid of the only person who has played with him and might notice scumtells. And I can't help but notice the similarities to how Pika is playing here and the way pika played last time he was scum.
My gut feel is that Pika, the Alien Queen, was cool with meandering along until some attention starting to be sent his way - at which point he had to pick people to accuse to divert attention, he picked me partially because other people were already interested in that option - thus being a safe pick and the best alternative from him - and because I'm the only person familiar with his style of play and as such it's in his best interests to get rid of me as soon as apossible.

Vote Pika

[Ragian]

Tell me where I called you moronic? Go read the thread again before you make an ass of yourself.

I wasn't talking about you. Nowhere did I state that you called me moronic. Maybe apply the above to yourself, buddy.

@Pika, I think we have different opinions about what hiding is. Anyway, I'm always in favour of lynching D1. It helps seeing where everyone stands and makes sense in the long run.

Reading skoffin's thoughts on Pika, I find it hard to go along with it. It seems like the kind of case that can't be scrutinised without lynching as it's based on perceived tactics. Was Pika even the first to suggest Skoffin?

[DirtyDishSoap]

No, I was the first one that had suggested it due to her overall lack of anything from her as compared to BNI, she defended Sam and convinced everyone to lynch mets. I was hoping just suggesting it would prod her activity a bit more, but it wasn't doing anything.

As for Skoffins post, it's hard to go off of someones word for another player that we don't know but you know exclusively. "Lynch this guy because I know how he plays, get the pressure off of me". If we're wrong about Skoffin, however, might be in our best interest to look at Pika next, take Skoffins word of caution for granted.

[madmitch]

[quote="Ragian"]No, IcePick, at the point I said that, you hadn't contributed more than Pika. I'm not butthurt because of a FoS. Calling me moronic and unable to see the obvious hurt most of my orifices, but apparently everyone is in agreement that I'm too thick to be the Queen anyway, so f*ck it.
I was going to vote for you because of your statement, I thought that a scum would say that but the case against Skoffin is looking pretty strong.

[Pikanchion]

Nothing to see here, vote for this guy because reasons!