Aliceās voting pattern was obvious scum. Voting pattern = win condition = slot alignment.
I donāt think even Alice can avoid having her voting pattern testify against her.
Iām not going to pretend that differentiating agenda from tunnelling is an easy thing. Sometimes, it can be quite easy to distinguish pushes in bad faith from genuine pushesā¦ it really depends on the reasons the pusher is using and how they present them. Itās difficult to discuss in general terms, but I think Iāve listed the primary differences between v/w reckless pushes.
This is incorrect. Alice was 3p with no faction of her own. She had no TMI. Her voting pattern alone says nothing for that reason ā she does not actually know who she is voting.
Of course, she would be inclined to vote out members of certain factions at certain times, because she needs to kill both factions. However, it is dependent on her reads and not on TMI, meaning that her voting pattern can be inaccurate (she could be voting people of the incorrect alignment by sheer accident).
Conclusion: while you can rely on it to some extent, it is not very accurate due to her being 3p.
Consider how many other villagers exclusively voted town this game (or low-hanging fruit wolves anyone could vote with no pushback). Yeah. You could misread them based on that as well.
Alice as āconfirmed townā wasnāt dying in the day or night. That should have been a red flag she was being miscleared.
This is trueā¦ partially. That doesnāt relate to her voting pattern, though.
In that specific game, it was incorrect too. Mafia never tried to kill her, because her reads were bad (on purpose, but still). You could theoretically claim that she was scum, but you could also make a case for her being town and alive (āher reads are just bad this game and thatās why sheās aliveā). I see where youāre coming from, and you could use it as an argument, but it wasnāt a huge red flag, in my opinion.
As you see, itās difficult to read 3p members. Which is why I donāt really like lone 3p members. Hunting for them is a foolās errand if they know what they are doing.
3p members have the advantage of never being burdened with TMI unless it comes to discovering exactly the neutral killer, which is why they are capable of having genuine reads on groupscum. In open setups, this is less of an issue, because the presence of a neutral killer is known and they can be found based on that knowledge. In closed setups, this is a massive issue ā not only because you may not know how many scum are still alive (or if they are even still in the game, after multiple scum flips), but also because you donāt expect the necessity to hunt for someone with no TMI on groupscum (but who is still scum).
This is why NK in closed setups is a particularly annoying thing for villagers, and why itās more difficult to find them in that situation than it appears at first glance.
You canāt find them through mechanics because lolclaimvig and most people will not out their info, you canāt find them through TMI because they have no TMI on groupscum, and you canāt find them through agenda because their only agenda is āanyone but me.ā They have no obligation to keep anyone else alive, and all alignments generally want to self-pres. Incredibly frustrating at times.
There are exceptions to this, of course, especially when they are close to winning and need to be more pushy. Generally speaking, however, what I said applies.
I donāt really blame town for not being able to find Alice, but I still think that town should work more coherently as a unit and be less afraid of pushing the stronger players. That game goes differently with less TvT arguing and a consistent, solid, cooperative towncore.
This is why Iāve been wanted to rand NK for a while here.
I doubt there will be any noticeable difference from how I play NK from town.
Only way to know is to play enough games until I rand as NK.
Magical ātowncredā School Bus
I disagree with Aliceās voting pattern not being scum AI.
Neutral Killer doesnāt wish to see every town live, nor every scum live.
If theyāre pushing for a balance of lynches itās an indicator of NK.
I believe she could know someone is scum but realise the scumteam are doing very poorly and proceed to push onto a different lynch
This is something a neutral killer does
Not something a town does
Which is why I believe NK vote pattern could be indication of NK
The thing is that without having TMI yourself, itās nigh impossible to distinguish āNK voting patternā from ātown voting patternā until very late into the game. If you know that NK exists, it is indeed possible, but you need to have a fairly solid grasp on the game to do this. Town can and will vote both town and scum as well.
The problem is that in a closed setup like Community FM was, itās almost impossible. You donāt know that NK exists. There is no reason you should, unless you are a mechanics cop or something.
Tiny regret I helped talk the fellow mafia from strongman killing Alice night 1
If I want to describe town playing badly, the word drater seems to be ok right?
Thatās a big oof.
Which is why I wouldnāt include it again, unless 3p is an entire faction or something. Alternatively, maybe make a town mechanics cop who knows about the existence of NK? Just something to let town know there is more than one faction to hunt for.
If scum keep dying, or are entirely wiped out, and the game still isnāt over, something is iffy and itās not easy to figure out what.
Tbh it more screwed with Mafia, since they could have had an additional member (Letās assume Alice was maf instead) and still have deep wolved to a win.