And (finally) I give you part 6 of 6. Apologies for the delay, I just ran out of time earlier. Let's begin.
I think that in my first 5 outline posts, I was fairly clear as to where my suspicions lie individually. To recap, in order of scummiest read to "safest":
Insomniac
Robz
Voltgloss
Jotheonah
It must be noted that there isn't a HUGE gap between I and R, nor is there a huge gap between V and J. There is, however, a huge gap between the top two and bottom two. Still, I have to ask myself, how sure am I that Insomniac is Mafia? How sure am I compared to Robz? Would I be willing to stake the game on it? The answer I invariably come up with is no. No, I'm not sure. No, I don't believe Insomniac is guilty and Robz is innocent, and No, I wouldn't stake the game on it.
But where does that leave me? It leaves me wondering about Pairs. If I can't put together a case for the individual, maybe I can think partners. So I'll start with every possible pair, and narrow down my search:
I-R
I-V
I-J
R-V
R-J
V-J
6 pairs in all. I decided to take a leaf out of Robz's book, back in post #400, and look at the pairs in terms of friendliness. Sure, today one Mafia may be willing to throw another under the bus to hide suspicion, but they likely wouldn't have done that the WHOLE game. I also decided to play more by instinct than pure logic. As indicated, logic got me nowhere the first two days, and instinct worked well over in Mafia-I. With a fresh knowledge of everybody's actions, I set to work eliminating people who have been going at each other Day 1 and Day 2:
The obvious one here to eliminate is I-R. They have been back and forth since Insomniac really joined in on the game day 2. Way more so than a natural Mafia pair would be. There was too much risk to attack so hard day 2. The other advantage to throwing this pair out *for now* is that because the conversation is currently on WHICH is Mafia. If they ARE a pair, we'll safely hit one either no matter how we vote today.
The next pair that I eliminated, was V-J. There wasn't a whole lot of back and forth from them day 1 (unless you count the No Lynch stuff, which I've said since the beginning I don't think is relevant), but Day 2 they were all over each other until I made a push for Kuildeous. With Robz's day 2 suspicions of J thrown in, had the subject not changed, there is a high likelyhood that one of them (probably J) would've been lynched. This pair just doesn't make much sense to me. They've also firmly set themselves up on opposite sides day 3, so I don't find this likely.
Unsurprisingly, I'm left with Insomniac paired with V or J, and Robz paired with V or J. Again, I look backwards to pick up on patterns and trends. Robz and Jotheonah had a pretty good spat going to start day 2, with each claiming falsehoods and lies. Neither advanced their argument very far INTO day 2, as J decided Volt was the better person to argue with, and R decided K might be more suspicious. Still, it seemed risky to me as a Mafia move. Possible pair? Sure. Likely? No.
I felt the same about a possible Insomniac-Volt pairing. Insomniac opened day 2 voting for Voltgloss in his very first post. He pushed it for awhile, then dropped it completely. But on this side, Volt decides to drop his case to argue with Jotheonah, and Insomniac seems to come out going after Robz instead. Still a very risky ploy early on, that could've seen one of them get snowballed into a lynch. As above, possible pair? Sure. Likely? No.
And now the last two. The most likely two.
Insomniac-Jotheonah
Voltgloss-Robz
I hadn't realized just HOW friendly Voltgloss has been to Robz the whole game. I can't honestly say there were more than 3 posts (IF that) where he even SLIGHTLY suspected him.
The same is not QUITE true of Insomniac and Jotheonah, although honestly I don't think I could find enough posts where they really go after each other to build a case that they AREN'T a pair.
So both are friendly, but not openly so (arguable in V-R case). How do I decide? My final thoughts came down to this (and I alluded to this at the end of Insomniac's write-up). IF I vote for Insomniac, I'm essentially voting for Jotheonah because that is the only pair that makes sense. Likewise, IF I vote for Robz, I'm essentially voting for Voltgloss. As noted at the beginning, Voltgloss IS slightly higher on my suspects list than Jotheonah. So why would I choose to vote Insomniac over Robz? Instinct. At the end of the day, neither Volt nor Jotheonah leveled any real accusations against me (not counting day 3, where both denounced me, but Volt has come after me with vigor), but Volt felt more like a townie who just didn't suspect me. Jotheonah... his constant never ceasing quest to "earn" my trust day two concerned me. It did then, and I noted it, but was willing to let it pass. WHEN I noted it, he got defensive and tried to make sure I didn't walk backwards. He doesn't FEEL like a townie who doesn't suspect me, he FEELS like a Mafia trying to make a friend in the town so that when we get into THIS EXACT SITUATION, he can use that friendship to help win.
He DID denounce me though, which might put a thorn in my thoughts, except, as noted by Volt in his never ceasing quest to Villainize day 3, Jotheonah never really did follow up on that. As odd as it may be, my INSTINCT tells me that Volt's quest to pair me up with Insomniac as Mafia is more honest and trustworthy than Jotheonah's saying one thing and then not following up on it.
Note that nowhere in here do I talk about the demonized roleclaim. Here's my take: I don't know if it's true or not. I honestly don't care. If it IS true, he gains nothing by revealing, and looses nothing by revealing. If it's NOT true, he really gains nothing by revealing, and has a VERY small chance of risk by revealing. He can't prove it, and it doesn't help us. Maybe he thinks it does? I don't care. My case against him isn't based on that. My case against him is based on his whole game. As is my case against everybody here. And WHOLE GAME, I suspect Insomniac more.
So, in about 24 hours, if I havn't seen a reason to change, I will be voting Insomniac.
Also, as a last note (this wasn't relevant when I left earlier), I don't know if Insomniac's claims in other thread are true or not, and much like Rob'z roleclaim, I don't care. I treat anything said outside as irrelevant and neither true nor false. It could be either. But it has no impact whatsoever on my decision, nor should it.
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Topic: Mafia II: Of Goons and Woodcutters GAME OVER Mafia Wins! (Read 95678 times)