Post by Snaq ◢ ◤ on Jul 1, 2023 0:02:29 GMT
Five Takeaways from the Mafia Championships Season 10 Tryout Game
By FTF
The Mafia Championships are hosted yearly on Mafia Universe (X) and feature a high level of competition from communities all across the web. PS! is a regular participant, and to decide this year's representative, I hosted a Tryout Game featuring some of the room's best and brightest (X). This proved to be a preview of the level of intensity we could expect to see from the eventual Championship games; the Tryout Game was hotly contested and quickly shot up as one of the forum's most active games, sharing rarified air with games like Murder in the Safehouse and Countdown 4. It showcased the immense talent this community possesses, and today I'd like to highlight some things that stood out to me over the course of the game, and how these takeaways can raise the average level of play.
1) Energy and Effort matter
To start off, I'm highlighting a very basic tenet of higher levels of play: Simply showing up and participating is half the battle. This game becomes so much easier to play when your player-list is full of active and engaged players. There's definitely a skill to be acquired in terms of engaging with low-hanging fruit and bringing them up to the average town level, but I think an individual player can improve greatly by looking at where they're at in terms of activity level, and seeing if it's appropriate for the game being played. After all, why would you want to be a low-hanging fruit? Simply put, being able to contribute regularly and effectively to the gamestate is an invaluable skill that will serve you well regardless of alignment.
To elucidate, let's look at Spiderz on Day 1 of the Tryout Game. It was very much still in the early "feeling-out" portion of the game, but Spiderz is able to inject life into the game. He enters the thread as the leading wagon 24 hours in, very quickly establishes himself as town, and is then able to round up other townies to vote out the Mafia PR. It's a great display of skill facilitated directly by his energy and effort. Again: simply showing up and looking like you want to be there, does wonders.
I want to say using ChatGPT to write posts is a bit scummy, since like... write your own posts so we can read you please
but if I'm being honest it doesn't really indicate anything
what is a bit scummy to me is to instantly reveal how the posts were made after a single lifted eyebrow
as town you gotta have some confidence and commit to the bitRight like this post bothers me
It's not wrong, technically but it's like this overanalysis (over analysis in the sense that it's pretty useless to analyze and NOT that you are looking to deep into something in something) that overall doesn't help solve the alignment right, so I feel like you are saying this just say it, I also think your mighty cannon read is a little BS
Wrt toni I am indifferent to the whole bit because I feel like it's something both town and scum could do as an game opener joke etc
spiderz has advanced the gamestate in the last 3 pages way more than any other player so far which is a pretty good lookspiderz effect
should I sit here and complain about the afks and how realistically this game will be hard mode because i'm randing like 5-6 peoples alignment since they have next to no content Lol
2) Townplay is more than being right
Too many times I think people get caught up in being right and nothing else. Too many times you'll see players going at one another over the wrong choices made at single decision points, which they believe cost them the game. While those are a factors in a loss, the reality of the game is that the outcome is multiply determined. What this means, is that it isn't as simple as being right about a single read. Town needs to vote as a whole; one singular player being right means nothing in the grand scheme of things. It's a difficult pill to swallow, but acknowledging this allows new layers of subtlety and nuance into the game. This also opens up a huge can of worms about leadership, deference, town-coring, and so on and so on, so I'll try to keep it simple.
Remember what I said about engaging with the entire player-list? Let's look at some posts from Schia:
i think a problem i'm having rn is that most of this thread is just asynchronous interaction which isn't inherently awful but there's certain things that are easier to tease out when you can come at it from differnet angles
&ofc the perennial issue of "so-and-so isn't readable"
also i'm going back to me "volume reads are dumb" era, gonna need people to be more specific from now on when they're like "there's not enough posts to read" bla blah, say more, explain why that's an impediment, blah blah
people are so afraid of Getting Tricked that they forget that villagers are 100% free to just say what's on their mind and talk through their ideas w/ one another in the hopes of reaching some kind of understanding & approaching a more accurate view of the world
and so instead they just say stuff like "idk man what if it's this!!!!" or "how do you not see this???" and basically shut off entire avenues of play bc they would rather play based on pure conjecture than attempt any real level of metacognition
which makes it ten thousand times easier for wolves to phone it in - bc the one element of villagery thinking that's hardest to fake over a sustained period is the one element of villagery thinking that they don't *have* to fake
There's a lot to be gleaned in terms of Schia trying their best to raise the participation level of everyone else. This might be clearer if you look at the game from an endgame-centric perspective. How is this one going to play out? After the top towns get nightkilled, how will the rest of town pick up the pieces? As an individual you can be correct about certain things, but what does it mean if you can't get anyone to see eye to eye with you?
I think the last bit about talking freely is especially pertinent. This is a team game, don't be afraid to put aside personal pride to work together.
3) Towntelling Helps
This is a bit of a summation of the previous two points, but I wanted to emphasize how important it is to towntell, meaning, to show the rest of town that you're townie. As aforementioned, townplay is more than just being right about reads. This is only part of the wider battle. It is vital that you give your fellow town players the material needed to be right in the first place. Being able to meet people halfway when they're having trouble reading you benefits you and them. It's as simple as that! Cooperation wins games so don't be afraid to put yourself out there. Common ways to do this include explaining your reads more, responding to more questions and engaging people throughout the player-list.
In the Tryout Game, town-telling proved to be vital for town's early success:
this is even lazier because i just joined mcs wagon instead of the other w/ two pl on it
not a very cash money move as scum
What's ur scumpool looking like?dont really care i think, lots of town
kliff crespo clems (clouds)
scorr mc schia ani
cuddz om myan
mfw im going to have to shift to save t/litt
noteworthy that spiderz cleared om before he died which should place him above the other two, plus i suspect schia would say something (plus my view on the interact was schia pocketing om if it was s/w in that case)
schia was a tier below until that last post for full disclosure but i dont think im wrong for shifting up
show us this
Toni and OM are town and I don't feel like explaining it rn but esp omquote
should not say cleared, should say townread
but w/e
Litt is tied with Myan on votes an hour away from EOD. They proceed to take over thread and post themselves well clear of Myan content wise. Myan is then voted out as Mafia. There were other factors at play responsible for Town landing on the correct vote, but I wanted to highlight this particular tidbit because of the nature of Litt's posting. He efficiently shares his reads while getting people to recognize that he's worth saving in this situation, and this leads to a big swing at EOD that gets a Mafia voted out. This becomes possible large in part due to his ability to towntell.
4) Think Outside the Box
Allow me to paint the scene: Town has been cruising comfortably through the game so far. We reach Day 4 with there being incorrect consensus on Litt being the last Mafia. Town continues in circles, when all of a sudden, Scorch has an epiphany:
it was myan who scum leaked
and I think goon flip means higher likelyhood of bussing if any
cuddleszz: This doesn't feel like a distance vote nor a bus attempt from Myan. Seems like he was testing the waters for a potenial misvote.
Animal Midwife:
OM~!: blindly sheeping schia's village read here. I feel like I tend to sr OM regardless of his alignment so it is what it is
litteleven: thoughts already stated
我是谁?: thoughts already stated
kliff:
mightycannon: interactions with flipped scum are too natural to be s/s
Crespo: quo d1 spews Crespo as green
Clouds: locktown
new new poe?
Scorch is introduced to new information pertaining to the previous day. Immediately taking it into consideration, he reshapes his POE around it and lands on a correct solve. This is never acted upon, but I immediately took note of the ingenuity behind it and how he came across this conclusion. Too often, Town is content with coasting by on a broken POE, without adjusting with each passing day. Unfortunately town can't actually win the game by voting on autopilot! Figuring out where you went wrong is an important part of solving games. It's ok to go back and reassess your previous beliefs and examine what was actually propping them up, and what's changed since then.
5) Never Give Up
We're getting a bit cliché at the end here, but I think this deserves being overtly stated: Never Give Up. It's as simple as that. Mafia can be a demoralizing game sometimes, but it's never over until it's over. Even when things look grim, challenge yourself to try and get over that last hurdle, as town or mafia. Maybe town has been mis-voting the whole game, but that shouldn't stop you from trying to find the wolves. Or maybe, you're the last wolf alive facing near-insurmountable odds and constant pressure to stay afloat:
That's right, after Myan dies, it's left as a 1v9 heading into Day 4. Kliff digs deep and lasts all the way to the end, and secures the win for the Mafia in LYLO. This was a grueling feat, as the game lasted nearly an entire month. Kliff showed out versus very tough opposition and was able to snatch a win from the jaws of defeat. It's a testament to this game's key qualities: nothing is set in stone. As such, I hope you all take a page from Kliff's book and keep at it when you're playing, no matter how dismal it seems.
Conclusions
And there we have it. The Tryout Game was definitely one of the more recently memorable ones, and I'm glad that I was able to both host it, and showcase the things that stuck out to me here. I wanted to highlight more of Kliff's actual in-game posts, but I don't think I can do him justice. It's better if you read his ISO yourself, and see the level of work that went in to his accomplishments (X). I hope the things discussed here were worth your time, and that you were able to get some value out of it. Mafia's a continuous learning experience, and I think this particular game is no exception.
By FTF
The Mafia Championships are hosted yearly on Mafia Universe (X) and feature a high level of competition from communities all across the web. PS! is a regular participant, and to decide this year's representative, I hosted a Tryout Game featuring some of the room's best and brightest (X). This proved to be a preview of the level of intensity we could expect to see from the eventual Championship games; the Tryout Game was hotly contested and quickly shot up as one of the forum's most active games, sharing rarified air with games like Murder in the Safehouse and Countdown 4. It showcased the immense talent this community possesses, and today I'd like to highlight some things that stood out to me over the course of the game, and how these takeaways can raise the average level of play.
1) Energy and Effort matter
To start off, I'm highlighting a very basic tenet of higher levels of play: Simply showing up and participating is half the battle. This game becomes so much easier to play when your player-list is full of active and engaged players. There's definitely a skill to be acquired in terms of engaging with low-hanging fruit and bringing them up to the average town level, but I think an individual player can improve greatly by looking at where they're at in terms of activity level, and seeing if it's appropriate for the game being played. After all, why would you want to be a low-hanging fruit? Simply put, being able to contribute regularly and effectively to the gamestate is an invaluable skill that will serve you well regardless of alignment.
To elucidate, let's look at Spiderz on Day 1 of the Tryout Game. It was very much still in the early "feeling-out" portion of the game, but Spiderz is able to inject life into the game. He enters the thread as the leading wagon 24 hours in, very quickly establishes himself as town, and is then able to round up other townies to vote out the Mafia PR. It's a great display of skill facilitated directly by his energy and effort. Again: simply showing up and looking like you want to be there, does wonders.
but if I'm being honest it doesn't really indicate anything
what is a bit scummy to me is to instantly reveal how the posts were made after a single lifted eyebrow
as town you gotta have some confidence and commit to the bit
It's not wrong, technically but it's like this overanalysis (over analysis in the sense that it's pretty useless to analyze and NOT that you are looking to deep into something in something) that overall doesn't help solve the alignment right, so I feel like you are saying this just say it, I also think your mighty cannon read is a little BS
Wrt toni I am indifferent to the whole bit because I feel like it's something both town and scum could do as an game opener joke etc
2) Townplay is more than being right
Too many times I think people get caught up in being right and nothing else. Too many times you'll see players going at one another over the wrong choices made at single decision points, which they believe cost them the game. While those are a factors in a loss, the reality of the game is that the outcome is multiply determined. What this means, is that it isn't as simple as being right about a single read. Town needs to vote as a whole; one singular player being right means nothing in the grand scheme of things. It's a difficult pill to swallow, but acknowledging this allows new layers of subtlety and nuance into the game. This also opens up a huge can of worms about leadership, deference, town-coring, and so on and so on, so I'll try to keep it simple.
Remember what I said about engaging with the entire player-list? Let's look at some posts from Schia:
and so instead they just say stuff like "idk man what if it's this!!!!" or "how do you not see this???" and basically shut off entire avenues of play bc they would rather play based on pure conjecture than attempt any real level of metacognition
which makes it ten thousand times easier for wolves to phone it in - bc the one element of villagery thinking that's hardest to fake over a sustained period is the one element of villagery thinking that they don't *have* to fake
There's a lot to be gleaned in terms of Schia trying their best to raise the participation level of everyone else. This might be clearer if you look at the game from an endgame-centric perspective. How is this one going to play out? After the top towns get nightkilled, how will the rest of town pick up the pieces? As an individual you can be correct about certain things, but what does it mean if you can't get anyone to see eye to eye with you?
I think the last bit about talking freely is especially pertinent. This is a team game, don't be afraid to put aside personal pride to work together.
3) Towntelling Helps
This is a bit of a summation of the previous two points, but I wanted to emphasize how important it is to towntell, meaning, to show the rest of town that you're townie. As aforementioned, townplay is more than just being right about reads. This is only part of the wider battle. It is vital that you give your fellow town players the material needed to be right in the first place. Being able to meet people halfway when they're having trouble reading you benefits you and them. It's as simple as that! Cooperation wins games so don't be afraid to put yourself out there. Common ways to do this include explaining your reads more, responding to more questions and engaging people throughout the player-list.
In the Tryout Game, town-telling proved to be vital for town's early success:
Apr 8, 2023 3:18:04 GMT OM~! said:
I think mc litt r just wolvesthis is even lazier because i just joined mcs wagon instead of the other w/ two pl on it
not a very cash money move as scum
kliff crespo clems (clouds)
scorr mc schia ani
cuddz om myan
schia was a tier below until that last post for full disclosure but i dont think im wrong for shifting up
should not say cleared, should say townread
but w/e
Litt is tied with Myan on votes an hour away from EOD. They proceed to take over thread and post themselves well clear of Myan content wise. Myan is then voted out as Mafia. There were other factors at play responsible for Town landing on the correct vote, but I wanted to highlight this particular tidbit because of the nature of Litt's posting. He efficiently shares his reads while getting people to recognize that he's worth saving in this situation, and this leads to a big swing at EOD that gets a Mafia voted out. This becomes possible large in part due to his ability to towntell.
4) Think Outside the Box
Allow me to paint the scene: Town has been cruising comfortably through the game so far. We reach Day 4 with there being incorrect consensus on Litt being the last Mafia. Town continues in circles, when all of a sudden, Scorch has an epiphany:
WAIT
it was myan who scum leaked
and I think goon flip means higher likelyhood of bussing if any
Animal Midwife:
OM~!: blindly sheeping schia's village read here. I feel like I tend to sr OM regardless of his alignment so it is what it is
litteleven: thoughts already stated
我是谁?: thoughts already stated
kliff:
mightycannon: interactions with flipped scum are too natural to be s/s
Crespo: quo d1 spews Crespo as green
Clouds: locktown
new new poe?
Scorch is introduced to new information pertaining to the previous day. Immediately taking it into consideration, he reshapes his POE around it and lands on a correct solve. This is never acted upon, but I immediately took note of the ingenuity behind it and how he came across this conclusion. Too often, Town is content with coasting by on a broken POE, without adjusting with each passing day. Unfortunately town can't actually win the game by voting on autopilot! Figuring out where you went wrong is an important part of solving games. It's ok to go back and reassess your previous beliefs and examine what was actually propping them up, and what's changed since then.
5) Never Give Up
We're getting a bit cliché at the end here, but I think this deserves being overtly stated: Never Give Up. It's as simple as that. Mafia can be a demoralizing game sometimes, but it's never over until it's over. Even when things look grim, challenge yourself to try and get over that last hurdle, as town or mafia. Maybe town has been mis-voting the whole game, but that shouldn't stop you from trying to find the wolves. Or maybe, you're the last wolf alive facing near-insurmountable odds and constant pressure to stay afloat:
That's right, after Myan dies, it's left as a 1v9 heading into Day 4. Kliff digs deep and lasts all the way to the end, and secures the win for the Mafia in LYLO. This was a grueling feat, as the game lasted nearly an entire month. Kliff showed out versus very tough opposition and was able to snatch a win from the jaws of defeat. It's a testament to this game's key qualities: nothing is set in stone. As such, I hope you all take a page from Kliff's book and keep at it when you're playing, no matter how dismal it seems.
Conclusions
And there we have it. The Tryout Game was definitely one of the more recently memorable ones, and I'm glad that I was able to both host it, and showcase the things that stuck out to me here. I wanted to highlight more of Kliff's actual in-game posts, but I don't think I can do him justice. It's better if you read his ISO yourself, and see the level of work that went in to his accomplishments (X). I hope the things discussed here were worth your time, and that you were able to get some value out of it. Mafia's a continuous learning experience, and I think this particular game is no exception.