NOC Popcorn Mafia 3 Game Thread

[JALMONT]

i think i was treating the first day cycle like conventional mafia with ppl trying to replicate voting patterns via democracy but the more i think about it the more i think optimal mafia strategy for this setup is to mirror their town game and play for an honest solve, given lack of night kill analysis to infer team compositions

See, I'm just not convinced that there's a team out there that actually recognized this. Like I think a team that is playing like this would have to be like you dusk celever +2. And in all fairness, that could be the case since I think you 3 are mostly trying to mirror your town games (although is that true for celever? I dunno). So I want to say it's still ok to look at voting patterns but obviously with hero shots that goes out the window and we cant' really see progression as that happens.

Again, I have to table the triple celever dusk texas scumteam. If that's it, we're in really bad shape lol. But I don't think we need to entertain that for another 1 or two shots and I'm not sure how much I really believe that anyway. I think you would all be a little more coordinated beyond celever being like "i'm low effort gl boys." And who knows, maybe skipper is going to hero one of you anyways.

I look at the lack of voting activity eod day 1 and relative lack of resistance to the aura vote which makes me think that there weren't enough active mafias online to really try and get off AG. That makes me think the mafia is pretty low effort. But then day 2 comes around, and the chad wagon looks pretty good in comparison to the caff wagon. And the people on the caff wagon make it hard for me to believe it's a low effort mafia team unless it's like celever and afk dudes? which would kind of line up. if Chad flips scum then I would imagine there's at least 2 if not 3 on the caff wagon.

I suspect we'll start to more pushes on individuals the later in the game we go but so far I haven't really noticed anything unusual on that front.

sigh. I thought about this for like an hour and barely got anything out. I hate this format.

 

[JALMONT]

Town
HydrogenHydreigon
Texas Cloverleaf
Clouds

Not Town
Jalmont
Celever
realiti
Thunder~BALLZ

not listed=idk

???

Idk what your mafia experience is and I know coming into a game like this with billions of words, most of which are nonsense can be tough but I'm hoping you can talk, whether that's stream of consciousness or whatever. The problem I'm having is that Chad!mafia really opens a lot of doors IMO who the scum team is. The more you're able to say the more I'll feel comfortable that isn't the case and we don't need to go down that route but atm it's tough for me to get away from needing to target you at some point.

Why is whydon not in your not town pool but TBZ is? I get confused everytime someone makes that distinction because I don't get how anyone can tell the difference.

 

[JALMONT]

I also wish the pace would pick up and the dragging out every dl as long as possible is not as optimal as people think it is

Yeah I actually don't mind playing out 2 days if we're doing democracy but if people just wanna hero shoot they should just do it, we don't need to spend 2 days clogging up the thread talking about whatever when it's has no bearing on who it's going to be.

 

[JALMONT]

afks
whydon
tbz
scorch

ambivalence level 100
LS - I am awful at reading LS because she has this way of writing that's just so agreeable and non-confrontational but at the same time makes me wary because it's just too agreeable and non-confrontational. idk
flyhn - I think someone else said it, but I agree that Flyhn isn't really getting in there and for me he's kind of started floating in a bad way, which is what happens when scum get comfortable, and the game has gotten more comfortable for the mafia after a rocky start.

not as disappointed
dusk - honestly he would probably be town if not for the caff vote which the justification of was really poor. dusk is the sort of aggressive player that i think takes a risk like that to force a misfire.
hh - better lately so i'm not as disappointed. getting out of the afk bucket is a pretty big positive generally speaking i think.

a little more disappointed
celever - the votes don't look good for him, early game floating was Not Good, but recent entry has been improved. Too little too late? I get the sense there is some concern from him about not wanting to get shot.
realiti - I have a really hard time reading realiti and I'm not sure why. I think I do bad with volume posters because I can't differentiate out content from the fluff. So I can't pin down what exactly he thinks at time even though I know he is thinking. If someone said he was mafia floating through the game, I would believe it. If someone else said he's been leading votes and generating discussion, I'd believe it too. I guess for me he ends up in disappointment tier because I think he is not as decisive as he is when town. Not as disappointed compared to celever.

town but not lock town
texas - I want to say I'm pretty confident this isn't Texas's scumgame because he's thinking about this game at a pretty high level which he doesn't do as well as mafia. But there's also some weird things about him. Again, I just think if that's the case, we have to spot it lategame, and hopefully not in a lylo situation.
pulsar - if i didn't feel so strongly about the d1 vote pulsar would be in the ambivalence level 100 group because i don't really feel like she's done much. but I think that's just kind of her playstyle which, while irritating to me, isn't really a tell either.
clouds - tbh he's been driving conversation for the past several irl days after someone lit a fire under his ass. good

fuck I"m up so late gdi.

 

[HydrogenHydreigon]

Feels like p much every slot in the game is polarizing-

 

[ScorrchingTheaph]

???

Idk what your mafia experience is and I know coming into a game like this with billions of words, most of which are nonsense can be tough but I'm hoping you can talk, whether that's stream of consciousness or whatever. The problem I'm having is that Chad!mafia really opens a lot of doors IMO who the scum team is. The more you're able to say the more I'll feel comfortable that isn't the case and we don't need to go down that route but atm it's tough for me to get away from needing to target you at some point.

Why is whydon not in your not town pool but TBZ is? I get confused everytime someone makes that distinction because I don't get how anyone can tell the difference.

Whydon an TBZ are two different people. What makes you say they are of the same alignment?

 

[ScorrchingTheaph]

jalmont is just... bleeding town in my eyes, on top of subbing into a slot that looks very townie off of AG flipping mafia, and i'm curious what you see that's led you to scumread him ScorrchingTheaph. i know i'm partially influenced here by thinking he's spewed off of others and basically nobody scumreading him, but even without the tinted lens i think i'd still read jalmont's posts a few hundred times and see them as town every time

I have not read any of the thread prior to the point where I subbed in and it was more or less of a gut read. reminder to myself to look into the AG flip later

 

[ScorrchingTheaph]

btw does smogon have an iso function?

 

[HydrogenHydreigon]

isolate posts, bottom left

 

[ScorrchingTheaph]

(reading back) why am i reading unironic discussion about shot idle? i think ive seen enough

 

[Duskfall98]

(reading back) why am i reading unironic discussion about shot idle? i think ive seen enough

I do not remember that and if it exists I doubt many considered it seriously lol

 

[Duskfall98]

@skipeprgamez honestly just shoot whoever you want to, the game is dying we need momentum and waiting as long as possible is hurting town a lot just fire

 

[Duskfall98]

I always misspell his name god damn

 

[Nuxl]

Ehmcee has shot skippergamez.

skippergamez reveals to be…

Vanilla Town! Ehmcee dies and skippergamez is the new Gunbearer.

Cycle 5 begins and ends in about 48 hours - until 11:00 PM PST September 26/2 AM EST September 27.

I think dl is 21ish hours?

 

[master oden]

I didn’t like flyhns entry, in d1, either

vote flygon

 

[Celever]

Vote Aph

I mean they’ve had their chance to play since subbing in and I’m uninspired. They’re literally scummier than Chad rn

I find it strange how Clouds is treating Jal slot as uni townread when I’m p sure hard townreads on Jal are like, him and Texas. And then there are also people who vocally don’t townread him so much…. like Flyhn. Idk if any of y’all are putting any amount of stock in my read on this trio dynamic, but mark this as a point in favour for Clouds / Texas being the 2 scum of the trio with Jalmont perhaps (this kind of scumteam makes a lot of sense to me and would slot in nicely with the way the game is going).

 

[Duskfall98]

Vote Aph

I mean they’ve had their chance to play since subbing in and I’m uninspired. They’re literally scummier than Chad rn

I find it strange how Clouds is treating Jal slot as uni townread when I’m p sure hard townreads on Jal are like, him and Texas. And then there are also people who vocally don’t townread him so much…. like Flyhn. Idk if any of y’all are putting any amount of stock in my read on this trio dynamic, but mark this as a point in favour for Clouds / Texas being the 2 scum of the trio with Jalmont perhaps (this kind of scumteam makes a lot of sense to me and would slot in nicely with the way the game is going).

jal is also my top town

 

[Celever]

jal is also my top town

Didn’t clock that I’m assuming you haven’t said it in a while

Somehow I read every post in the catchup and have basically no thoughts, skipper should definitely have hip shot

 

[Celever]

In the IMO likely event he shoots me I’m not gonna hip shoot but I’m also not gonna post approx 4 town with approx one hard to solve scum and order people to try and work out the scum in the list lol

 

[Duskfall98]

In the IMO likely event he shoots me I’m not gonna hip shoot but I’m also not gonna post approx 4 town with approx one hard to solve scum and order people to try and work out the scum in the list lol

honestly just shoot me the afks straight away

 

[Celever]

honestly just shoot me the afks straight away

This is optimal and someone like skipper should be doing this but tbh I think I have better reads than most people itg rn so dying to smth like Whydon is a straight up waste to me + none of the inactives will shoot each other I think so it’s gonna be a ball ache at this stage trying to take the inactives out in a way that doesn’t completely kneecap town

as I said before and it prob sounds conceited but I’m p sure I have a great reign in late game once the inactives are taken out, I think I can still have an alright one without that but I’ll prob get pie on my face later

 

[Celever]

Though I lowk didn’t think mafia won at parity checked OP to math, its 9 v 5 atm (assuming skipper misfires which the only chance of him not is prob Aph but I still think Chad got hard dogpiled as scum). If he shoots me which seems likely and I shoot inactive town it prob goes 8 v 5 -> 7 v 5, if they then shoot another inactive town it’s 6 v 5 and then probably 5 v 5. Here inactive is only referring to TBZ and Whydon who have had bad reads.

If both inactives are town and skipper doesn’t shoot an inactive we missed the boat

 

[Duskfall98]

This is optimal and someone like skipper should be doing this but tbh I think I have better reads than most people itg rn so dying to smth like Whydon is a straight up waste to me + none of the inactives will shoot each other I think so it’s gonna be a ball ache at this stage trying to take the inactives out in a way that doesn’t completely kneecap town

as I said before and it prob sounds conceited but I’m p sure I have a great reign in late game once the inactives are taken out, I think I can still have an alright one without that but I’ll prob get pie on my face later

that's exactly what skipper thinks ftr and you're doing the same thing as him

 

[Celever]

that's exactly what skipper thinks ftr and you're doing the same thing as him

Except we don’t autolose if skipper shoots inactive now and both inactives are town but we do if I do it

 

[Celever]

And skipper has a fine compromise position by shooting Aph anyway who is inactive but he scumreads