Mafia Working through the town loss streak

[Damniel]

Hello everyone,

I was looking through the Cellar’s recent history, and found that the last time town won a main game was back in April with “The Renaissance” game (which pulled a miraculous town sweep)

since then, every main game (apart from June mafia which ended in a draw), has been won by mafia. This is particularly interesting to me as when I joined the Cellar back in 2015, it was very very rare for mafia to win

This thread is a discussion for why do you think mafia has been winning more recently, and what could you/all of us do to work through that?

from my perspective, some of the games had balance issues which led to more wolf-sided setups, while others had very strong wolf players, or town was not able to function together and ended up self cannibalizing

i think a major thing that’s happening is town struggling to recognize the different between weird behavior and wolf-motivated behavior. Sometimes town does really weird things that they can’t even explain and sometimes just doesn’t make sense, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they are deliberately trying to manipulate the game. there were also heated fights that led to players becoming frustrated with the game and not see past the fights, but town can get emotional too. i think it’s very important we begin to think about the differences here and work on identifying plays that are benefitting/indicative of mafia (i.e., players having no organic progression, solving almost all players but ignoring 2-3 of them, trying to create doubt on obvious town, etc) instead of just behavior that doesn’t make sense

thoughts? i think this could be a wonderful discussion for people to keep in mind in future games. when playing as town, what are some issues you encountered that led to maf wins? and when as wolf, what are some weaknesses in town that you were able to exploit?

 

[Antonio]

I think one of the biggest problem is Activity but that's a different story. However, for other games, mafia takes control of the narrative of the game which puts them in a townie aspect.

 

[Biancasbotique]

town is lazy thats why lol

love you all

 

[Geoni]

When you joined in the cellar in 2015 wolves were slipping all the time because PM games were the norm and hosts overloaded games with town PRs.

Not learning how to PoE and towncore correctly is where a lot of town loss is coming from, along with losing the drive to win on the town's side (also known as town apathy), and some instances of not comprehending mechanics. We also don't play games back to back anymore which means people aren't trying to avoid past mistakes and don't have a more refined sense of each other's meta (which is hard to change immediately).

 

[N e s s]

Get good

 

[Antonio]

Get good

Are you secretly Ninja?

 

[bell account]

rather have wolves win a lot than town win a lot

something that could be affecting it is if theres an influx of new players (or maybe im the only one) because established meta can usually lead to easy games for town because 2 or 3 people can always tell someones alignment

 

[epona]

it's def just town self-destructing bc people refuse to work together

i don't really agree with the wolves controlling the narrative point that antonio brought up, i think that assuming the role of leader usually comes from vocal town players and it causes confusion and division within town

 

[glow]

I think one of the biggest problem is Activity but that's a different story. However, for other games, mafia takes control of the narrative of the game which puts them in a townie aspect.

yeah this is a huge problem lol

 

[DinoTown]

I'm well aware of how my game ended up going but I think that it works as an excellent example of how town cohesion is a major factor in boosting town, in particular post-replacements being found up until the end. Town relied on each other more and took risks for each other (in particular Damniel and Epona) and it worked out really well for them, and if the game had been allowed to continue, it might not have been quite as impossible as the wolf team thought - I imagine it would have been a close call - but still wouldn't have been surprised to see town pull through for the first time in a while.

At the same time, a lack of cohesion was what impacted the mafia team in a negative way. I noticed some people mentioning "what team would let mafia Shawo do this" in the game but anyone joining the Discord after would have seen that Shawo straight up did not tell anyone that he was gonna do what he did, he just did it and it did eventually lead to his elimination.

So I guess what I'm just trying to say is that regardless of which side you are playing for, teamwork and keeping each other informed is a big key to success. I understand that it's harder to do as town because you're never entirely sure who your teammates are, but offering a little bit of trust and taking a risk can go a long way.