Maybe it's that I don't know most people's playstyles well enough to "productively scumhunt", but wagon analysis is the best option I have most of the time.
Regarding claims though... with the setup in this game, won't scum just claim VT most of the time? Or maybe counterclaim something near XYLO? So forcing out claims won't work as well as RMM games.
Has anyone ever shown that wagon analysis is helpful? I mean I do it too, but do we know if it is meaningful?
There is a significant lack of research on mafia game theory unfortunately.
Scum could likely get away easier on a wagon with no explanation.
No they couldn't. It would in fact be harder for them to get away with that. If reasons were provided, then scum can just say "I agreed with the reasons given by gkrieg". If no reasons were provided, then they have to come up with convincing reasons themselves.
So can you explain what the supposed pro town reason of routinely hiding the reasons for your D1 votes is?
Yes, sure. The first reason is it makes it harder for scum to hide. As explained in my answer to gkrieg above, having reasons makes it easy for scum to engage with the case - they just choose to agree or disagree with the reasons. If reasons are not given then they have to actively come up with a fake read without the guide of reading other player's reads. That is harder and thus playing that way makes it easier to catch scum.
Secondly, the person who is being wagoned cannot just argue their townieness by arguing against the reasons. It's easy, especially on D1, to pick apart any reasons given for any wagon. It is harder to argue your own townieness. Thus the latter gives better insight into their alignment.
Thirdly, if I do not give reasons, I can vote someone for pressure and have them not know that is why, which makes the pressure more effective. However if I give reasons for any "proper" vote, then it will be obvious when a vote is just for pressure.
Finally, reasons are often not much more than a confirmation-biased reread of someone you already gut-read as scum. If you type them out you only lean more into that confirmation bias. And you've created a position now that you will feel that you need to defend, which psychologically makes it even harder to remain open and fight the bias.
Can you point to any recent town game where you've done this?
You can probably look at any recent game where I've been town. However I replaced out early from Memento and Dwarves was bastard, so the best reasource is probably M134. I have a bunch of unexplained votes there.
