So now
here is the part where I am gonna speak about voting Psy, nothing before now was that and I wasn't just trying to paint him as mafia look at this cool signposting I'm doing
If we decide to vote purely based on the wagonomics of yesterday's vote, Psy should from an analytical point of view be the target of that vote. Schia pitched the vote, which increases visibility a lot and really opens their neck up if the counterwagon fails. It is absolutely possible Schia took that as a calculated risk, but I am unsure that that risk makes much sense for them given the gamestate. There were a number of potential wagons when Schia placed down the OM vote and the "optimal" mafia play there is to just, jump on one of those.
The timing of yesterday's events matter greatly, too. It was a significant matter of hours between Schia placing the initial OM vote, and Psy adding fuel to the wagon. Psy jumped on the OM vote about 50 minutes before deadline (IIRC) and in doing so, given his self-assignment as Most Visible Player, locked in the OM vote as the chosen counter-wagon. There
were still alternatives at this time, such as TBZ (as this is before TBZ arrived on the scene), but Psy instead opted to jump on OM. This could be down to some or all of these factors:
- Psy is town and actually Just Liked The OM Vote More (Schia is mafia or town)
- Psy had previously voted Caff multiple times that day, and might have overall scumread them more than townread them? It's Psy, he doesn't have a solid platform on anything. That's why he's unreadable. But certainly, the hard shift from genuinely seemingly being willing to vote Caff out that day to landing on OM out of nowhere is odd. Frankly, this is part of what informed my vote for Caff, as not just the timing but this lack of progression is what really locked OM in as a flashwagon.
- Psy's own explanation -- which is that he felt that if OM were town then we could just vote Schia out today, and so he wanted to flip OM. Immediately this is fascinating, because it doesn't loop Caff into the justification at all. Once again, Psy for the most part did not townread Caff in the thread, and this is a really shaky justification for a D1 flashwagon. OM provides information on one (1) slot in Schia, and even that is a fairly tenuous link full of assumptions. Caff is the information vote between the two because he provided content. Frankly there is a chance that this is a slight perspective slip, as (and I am happy to be signposted to where I'm wrong if I am, I think my brain is unable to hold the quantity of words Psy has posted in this thread in its chambers) I don't believe Psy has, even after the fact, really provided a balanced "I voted OM because and I didn't vote Caff because" argument, as though voting for Caff was never a viable option.
- Psy is Mafia and Schia is Town
- This is the likeliest outcome. Schia's case, unfortunately, just was not that good. Many of the votes on the OM wagon came from a pro-Caff stance as opposed to an anti-OM one. It was a meta-informed activity tell, you can't buy a postage stamp with how much that case is really worth, especially considering you just have to take Schia at their word about OM's scum meta. This is relevant, because it leaves Schia open to flanking from mafia. It is exceptionally easy to jump on the OM vote to save Caff and throw Schia in front of the firing squad afterwards as the ideologue of a flashwagon that was at best informed by a niche justification. I even noted during EoD yesterday that if I were mafia, that is what I would have done, and that realisation was another part of the reason why I voted for Caff instead.
- The above is such a likely strategy that was employed by someone, that it is why we can be fairly confident there is at least one mafia who voted for Caff. Psy is the optimal target from a game theory standpoint, because he is the person who turned OM into the counterwagon. Choosing a counterwagon has a lot of considerations, and OM was likely chosen because this wagon had an easy scapegoat for tomorrow. If Schia is town, I believe it definitely was. And Psy was the chooser.
- Psy waited until Schia returned and didn't change their vote before jumping on it. This timing does make some sense for a Psy!Mafia Schia!Town universe, though I believe it also...
- Psy is Mafia and Schia is Mafia
- ...could easily be because Psy knew his jumping on the OM wagon without Schia to back him up as the brains of the operation would only really make the wagon lose steam. Energy is important in mafia, a moving train is far more exciting than a stationary one. If Psy joined Schia on the OM vote earlier than he did, the probability is that we probably discuss it for 5 mins, and then deadline comes closer and AG throws a vote on TBZ and we all go "oh yeah ok I'll vote TBZ". It is extremely plausible that Schia told Psy to wait for them to get back from work so they could do the counterwagon properly, especially considering how much Schia!Mafia has stuck their neck out in order to try to save Caff.
- This is a sidenote, but I fundamentally disagree with Psy's row on Schia's chart. This makes this possibility more reasonable.
Just in terms of the wagonomics, voting Schia out instead of Psy, if we are basing the vote today primarily on yesterday's wagon, does not make sense from a game theory standpoint. That doesn't mean we
can't do it, but we have to bring in other analysis that is not so much to do with the last hour of D1 for it to be a justifiable move.