well yes but you tell that story and it’s like. very clearly exceptional.
i have played a quite a few mashes, I’ve wolfed more often than not in them (my luck) and usually it’s just “yeah we should probably just Get this guy”. like
switched actions off what onto suspected cops?
the presence of the reductive strategy as the null hypothesis is a problem even if good wolfteams actually play the game.
mashes having postcaps would probably be a net positive tho tbh
the sheer volume of the average mash is certainly one of the reasons i dont really play them anymore
Mash with ALIASes (ignore all the issues with complexity and “we need to get rid of this guy but have no clue which of the 100 names in the list they are”).
my argument is more that it seems to be similar closed game heuristics being applied on a larger scale i.e. the strategy itself does not change. like killing spks as a default is not unique to mashes, it’s generally going to be the null hypothesis regardless of game size. wolves are still considering players who are right or are playing like a PR for night actions. why SPKs are killed more readily in mashes does come down to structural differences and the ratios of various elements being much different across game size. there are fewer SPKs, a lot more wolves, and ITAs which can be incredibly damaging for wolves if there are living villagers that other villagers will blindly sheep that tend to be highly accurate. the math on the value of killing your alexas or ladds is pretty straightforward a lot of the time when you have multiple kills and things like roleblocks to help run out the clock on PRs. a single villager being accurate about a wolf matters way less when there are 10-20 wolves, and if that villager is not evaluated to have the sway to do anything with the read and if that wolf isn’t KP, they’re not going to be prioritized.
edit: to be extra clear, i do not think killing SPKs, even as a default, is a reductive strategy given the social dynamics of a mash
I think it’s from EiMM, but specifically the rolecards.
unironically yes it would be good imo
i agree btw
like its so common because these players are likely to have a broad impact on the direction of the game in itas in a way very likely to benefit the village greatly. its so standard and common because it is… optimal a lot of the time/good and correct generally. those players are very likely to harm your team substantially if left alive for ITAs even if their current reads as of eod1 are not necessarily great. nbowie put it good so im not gonna waste words basically repeating hers a bunch
its fair tbc for sure to take other issues with it as a dynamic but its for sure not really something done just because they dont have time to optimise it better IMO. irs done because a great deal of the time, having alexa or whoever alive for itas will absolutely hurt your team more than some role living to get a red check or dayvig shot. the scale of the game increases the proportional impact of an influential strong villager relative to a single correct provillage action on the game.
to add on
control of the thread on a social level, or specifically villagers and wolves ~fighting for it, is a core dynamic of mashes and how that battle goes is heavily representative of how the game is going. if you leave an alexa or whoever alive to shoot a pr read, you’re basically just actively choosing to cede ground and in many many cases that’s still true even if the read was right
this is certainly not to say that killing prs doesnt matter because it absolutely does, and the comparison i am about to make is obviously a bit of an oversimplification, but the choice between killing alexa n1 and [strong pr getting a red check on a not lhf and decently well positioned but not super deep wolf n1] n2, or reversing those is going to favor the former most of the time. villagers with strong correct broad thread influence (on the level of being those sorts of n1 prios) are going to do their damage Faster.
happy birthday
i’ve been more and more thinking of mashes as jockeying to be in the best position by the time the numbers are low enough to be an actual mafia game
it’s always funny to think “alright if they submitted a 20p with this as the starting role and alignment ratio how quickly would any sane reviewer reject this” and the median answer for a mash once it gets down to that number it would likely be within 5 seconds
I feel like I should clarify that i meant to mafia kp
getting shot by vigs got old like 3 “were both of those mafia shots”-in-open-setups shots ago
hm would the last 20 roles alive in fam6 work as a closed setup. keep in mind the comeback vig role would suck buns. my instinctual guess is slightly townsided (anticlaim complicates thoughts like this so pretend its like 2 shot or something) but i don’t remember the exact role distribution
alias is an acronym it stands for “ash lied, it’s actually smallcase” (they call it smallcase instead of lowercase)
oh serious thought re mashes that i think got missed in my joking earlier. the reason why the commuter and five dayvigs role sucked wasn’t because i prefer being silly it was because putting that much game saving pressure on one person in a game with like 60 people is just kind of inherently evil and i prefer mash designs that . spread power across roles a bit more evenly. people should do their best to impact the game AND be silly and the role you rand should allow you to do both those things
wrong the mafia’s win condition will rest on you living through night five and you will like it
i know you probably meant “the mafia’s wincon will rest on killing me night five” but “the mafia’s wincon will rest on me surviving night five and being in endgame” is just how every normal game goes for me nice try
