Quick Fix 64: Spies in Starsight

[Amanuensis]

Just now, Kasimir said:

Sigh. Hael. 

Vod, meh gar Mando'ad, ni gra'tua. 

Thinking that post suggests inactive IC --> Xino kill?

[Kasimir]

Just now, Amanuensis said:

Thinking that post suggests inactive IC --> Xino kill?

Part of me believes Hael does this no matter what.

Part of me remembered the extensive Jedi tracker including posts, activity count, and so on in the Sith doc in MR61 that Hael did. And this nudged me just a bit over the balance of indecision because that feels like the sort of thing you do more naturally when you hunt IC, not when you hunt Elims. Like...why would you be checking the follow data?

[Stick.]

I’m sorta hoping for a simple Silvereye/Hael team too. Let the suffering end,,,

[Kasimir]

@Amanuensis There is a chance I've hardlocked/biased myself into V!Stick but the re-read just entrenches V!Stick for me in multiple ways, some of which I've posted about. I wouldn't agree with a shot at Insanity or Almond - I feel both of them right now would be desperation votes and while I feel desperate, I don't think a good vote looks there until the Elim calling the shots is found. Some of Bookwyrm's posts still feel a bit off to me, but I also like Bookwyrm's responses, as I've mentioned multiple times in the thread.

Sure, I could idly consider an E!you world, but I've found a few points I like in favour of V!Aman, even if I hadn't also indicated I am not interested in seriously entertaining that possibility.

PoE takes me generally to a TUN v. Hael decision. That tipped me towards Hael.

Edited to add:

2 minutes ago, _Stick_ said:

I’m sorta hoping for a simple Silvereye/Hael team too. Let the suffering end,,,

Tell me about it...Failing which, mercy kill please...

I don't want to beat my exhausted brain into yet another round of this...

It's like playing pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey.

In the utter dark.

But the floor is lava.

And there's coriander.

Edited December 23, 2022 by Kasimir

[InfiniteInsanity]

More circles. Lots of circles. At least I actually slept. Maybe I slept a little too much.

Hael

Why does most of what everyone does feel off just enough? I don't like it.

This game is way too confusing.

[Haelbarde]

Well this is fascinating. And truly about what I expected.

In case there was any doubt, have a vote tally

Detailed
(0) Archer: Aman {1}
(0) Szeth: Kas {1}
(0) Stick: Aman {1}
(1) TUN: Stick {1}, Aman {2}, Stick {3}, Hael {1}
(6) Hael: Stick {2}, Stick {4}, Aman {4}, Bookwyrm {1}, TUN {1}, Kas {1}, Infinite {1}
(0) Kas: Aman {3}

Vote Tally
(6) Hael: Stick, Aman, Bookwyrm, TUN, Kas, Infinite
(1) TUN: Hael

Unless our elims are Exotic and Infinte, there is one or two elims voting me. I see two options here. E!Stick hearing that I'm going to be offline for the next 6 hours, has the option of finding a reason to sus me, place a vote and at this stage of the game, where you've got to choose one of a number of bad choices, once someone has picked one, it's fairly natural for a wagon to form, because it feels less bad to follow the person who chose, than have to choose to be the reason one of the other bad options dies. Once Aman jumps on, you've got a fairly guaranteed wagon if it stays, as evidenced by the one that appeared. While there's 6 hours left, at this point player activity could easily mean I'm stuck with 3 votes regardless of whatever posts are made in the next six hours. 

But I still tend to think Stick is village. Like, even with today. Why does E!Stick choose to sus me in thread to try get the execution? I feel like I wouldn't have been the easiest option, so why not push Book or TUN, and save me for a Night Kill?

So I think Stick and Aman's votes make sense enough as village just having to make a terrible choice. Kas' vote is too late on the wagon to mean anything. The goldilocks zone of opportunistic!Elim is where Book and TUN are. Who were my main candidates anyway.

Book has always voted fairly late on established. The one notable vote was Aman v Fifth, Book broke the tie by voting Fifth in cycle 3. But I like Books posts as I skim back over them. He's sharing opinions on the thread, on who he's sus of, I think I even saw a speculation on what certain flips could imply about other players. They seem a confused village - they're certainly playing the part with the degree of waffling in their vote on me.

TUN... Has TUN ever posted a read ever? Well, I mean, they have. But I think each time was prompted, and never was there any attempt to give reasons for that, as far as I can tell at a glance. For example this cycle, how is their post anything other than opportunistic - the only time they've ever mentioned me as a suspicion previously, it was in the context of Stick vs me, at which point they thought Stick was the more suspicious. Yes, they later, when prompted, give a reason. Which was someone else's reason - Stick's point about tying up of votes. So they've turned up, seen 3 votes on someone, they've thought "Great! A wagon to consolidate that's not me, that I can consolidate without really having to comment." and then just said "What she said" when asked why, rather than doing any actual work. And all this from a player more experienced that I. I've 33 games under my belt - TUN has 41. (Kas is at 47, Stick 55, and Aman is at 64, if anyone was curious). So for what it's worth, putting my vote on TUN.

(Other things I'm musing about re: TUN - activity was highish C1-2 with 7 and 10 posts. 1 post C3 (despite a bunch of other posts around the Shard), 4 C4, 3 C5, but suddenly he's got 8 posts right at the end when numbers mean he might actually be in danger of getting executed if they're not careful. And I'm trying to decide if they've had some misunderstandings of how the Winzik works and if that has implications)

---

1 hour ago, Kasimir said:

Part of me remembered the extensive Jedi tracker including posts, activity count, and so on in the Sith doc in MR61 that Hael did. And this nudged me just a bit over the balance of indecision because that feels like the sort of thing you do more naturally when you hunt IC, not when you hunt Elims. Like...why would you be checking the follow data?

I have also spent a bunch of time over the last week or so tidying up the About Me page on my profile with all my game stats, and am considering revising it to add more information in it. While yes, whenever I'm evil, I'm likely the reason for a variety of tables being inserted into the end of the doc, even as village I regularly set up an excel spreadsheet to track role claims, who's alive and dead, who voted who, and post counts to track activity. I like data. If you wanted preexisting proof, not sure how best to find reference to that in a post, but with the last KKC game, which admittedly I was evil for but that's not truly relevant to the point I'm making, I did overhaul my player sheet with a bunch of stuff to keep track of my money usage throughout the turn, and keep a record of it throughout the game. Pretty sure the GMs took that and shared it to all the other players, and I'm pretty sure I linked to the sheet in the aftermath of that game. I guess what I'm trying to say is a love of data is more indicative of me in an AN that of my alignment.

Regarding the follow data specifically, while I've made a point of that in the past once or twice, I keep forgetting it was a thing. In that particular case, it came about because when we had the Xino kill, one of my first thoughts is that we didn't have an elim on at end of cycle to see Mat(t)'s vote, so it was critical to note when players were last online asap to preserve that information. I suppose I should have actually noted down everyone's last online times but I got distracted with Stick and I think it was Nerdy's times giving a solid option for two elims that wouldn't have seen Xino even being an execution option. Anyways, it was when I was looking at the activity feed portion of the profile that as I was looking down it, there was a line about them having followed the post, in between I think it was two posts in other forums, while they didn't post in thread for another 14 hours. I went and located the list of people following the thread only after seeing that to try and work out how following works to decide if it was just a matter of being @'d by Szeth in the signup post caused the follow, or if it had to be an active choice to follow without posting.

---

Got a few things to do, but then I'll get back and try and actually dig into the voting patterns stuff I said I'd do so that I can generate as much data as possible to help you out next cycle, assuming this execution is pretty much locked.

 

Edited December 23, 2022 by Haelbarde
Sigh. Adding in Infinite's ninja vote.

[Stick.]

why does Hael always have decently reasonable explanations to suspicious things ;-; Is he just too skilled at that?

I really don't want to second guess things now but hjkhklkljhgf

[Amanuensis]

I could buy TUN/Silver/???

[Kasimir]

1 minute ago, _Stick_ said:

why does Hael always have decently reasonable explanations to suspicious things ;-; Is he just too skilled at that?

I really don't want to second guess things now but hjkhklkljhgf

Not gonna lie, half my beef with the last few cycles is the fact we're playing on the assumption that this game is so different that we have to suspend the usual operating assumptions of a SE game, and that doesn't really make me happy.

19 minutes ago, Haelbarde said:

TUN... Has TUN ever posted a read ever? Well, I mean, they have. But I think each time was prompted, and never was there any attempt to give reasons for that, as far as I can tell at a glance. For example this cycle, how is their post anything other than opportunistic - the only time they've ever mentioned me as a suspicion previously, it was in the context of Stick vs me, at which point they thought Stick was the more suspicious. Yes, they later, when prompted, give a reason. Which was someone else's reason - Stick's point about tying up of votes. So they've turned up, seen 3 votes on someone, they've thought "Great! A wagon to consolidate that's not me, that I can consolidate without really having to comment." and then just said "What she said" when asked why, rather than doing any actual work. And all this from a player more experienced that I. I've 33 games under my belt - TUN has 41. (Kas is at 47, Stick 55, and Aman is at 64, if anyone was curious). So for what it's worth, putting my vote on TUN.

Who do you consider to be TUN's partner, would be my question. You say one or two Elims - I presume you're not committed to a two Elim team. I'm cynical enough to believe that there are probably two to three more left because the Village gods are never that kind.

20 minutes ago, Haelbarde said:

I have also spent a bunch of time over the last week or so tidying up the About Me page on my profile with all my game stats, and am considering revising it to add more information in it. While yes, whenever I'm evil, I'm likely the reason for a variety of tables being inserted into the end of the doc, even as village I regularly set up an excel spreadsheet to track role claims, who's alive and dead, who voted who, and post counts to track activity. I like data. If you wanted preexisting proof, not sure how best to find reference to that in a post, but with the last KKC game, which admittedly I was evil for but that's not truly relevant to the point I'm making, I did overhaul my player sheet with a bunch of stuff to keep track of my money usage throughout the turn, and keep a record of it throughout the game. Pretty sure the GMs took that and shared it to all the other players, and I'm pretty sure I linked to the sheet in the aftermath of that game. I guess what I'm trying to say is a love of data is more indicative of me in an AN that of my alignment.

Yeah, that was my thought, hence my mention you probably do this anyway. I'm specifically arguing, for reference, that the follow data seems to me more the sort of thing you would track to add into a big data profile of an IC candidate, as compared to finding an Elim, rather than that big data is itself suspicious, as your paragraph seems to be implying.

Which:

23 minutes ago, Haelbarde said:

Regarding the follow data specifically, while I've made a point of that in the past once or twice, I keep forgetting it was a thing. In that particular case, it came about because when we had the Xino kill, one of my first thoughts is that we didn't have an elim on at end of cycle to see Mat(t)'s vote, so it was critical to note when players were last online asap to preserve that information. I suppose I should have actually noted down everyone's last online times but I got distracted with Stick and I think it was Nerdy's times giving a solid option for two elims that wouldn't have seen Xino even being an execution option. Anyways, it was when I was looking at the activity feed portion of the profile that as I was looking down it, there was a line about them having followed the post, in between I think it was two posts in other forums, while they didn't post in thread for another 14 hours. I went and located the list of people following the thread only after seeing that to try and work out how following works to decide if it was just a matter of being @'d by Szeth in the signup post caused the follow, or if it had to be an active choice to follow without posting.

Ok.

Do you have an Elim game of yours you would recommend I look at. I know it's dated, I don't really care, at this point, I just want a baseline. Any baseline that's not MR61 because you died really fast there.

32 minutes ago, InfiniteInsanity said:

More circles. Lots of circles. At least I actually slept. Maybe I slept a little too much.

Hael

Why does most of what everyone does feel off just enough? I don't like it.

This game is way too confusing.

Unlikely to be a bus.

[Stick.]

I'm staying on target

[Kasimir]

Just now, _Stick_ said:

I'm staying on target

I retract any complaint Illwei and I had about the LG91 endgame.

[Haelbarde]

32 minutes ago, Kasimir said:

Do you have an Elim game of yours you would recommend I look at. I know it's dated, I don't really care, at this point, I just want a baseline. Any baseline that's not MR61 because you died really fast there.

Don't have much in the way of short games: El's LotR game that ended C1 was the only other evil start MR I played other than your SW one. AG4 feels typical low thread engagement Hael with the Diagram-wielding!Azure Mouse, while LG65 gives you what more active E!Hael looks like. The closest to an evil QF is QF46, in which I was one of the secret faction inside of the elim faction, where I seem to be my more typical low thread engagement.

Edited December 24, 2022 by Haelbarde
Added links for convenience

[Amanuensis]

I'm going to bed early tonight. Busy weekend starting early. @Kasimir we committed?

[Haelbarde]

15 minutes ago, Amanuensis said:

I'm going to bed early tonight. Busy weekend starting early. @Kasimir we committed?

I don't truly think it matters if you and Kas are committed or not. Stick I don't see moving, and Book, TUN, and Infinite have been one and done votes all game - they're not shifting either. If some reason the pair of you decide on another player that I can agree on, it takes the Winzik vote and Exotic's vote to confirm an execution on a target that is not me, but I'd put money on an Exotic appearance meaning another vote on me because that's the active wagon. 

If you're sleeping, doesn't matter, but anyone who continues to be on, I'd just ask you don't waste your time trying to work out who I'm teamed up with, and try work out what you do next cycle when I flip village. 

Heh. I'll give you one last argument for why I'm not elim though, just for fun - in the face of an execution that I don't think I can budge, I've not chosen to open wolf for the sake of trolling or evil RP, ala LG14 or MR7.

[Amanuensis]

TUN idk anymore gnight

Edited December 24, 2022 by Amanuensis

[Haelbarde]

I keep trying to look at things different ways so here's a chart of the number of times players have voted alongside each other:

The second is with C5 removed, seeing as just about everyone voted together. Basically it shows TUN, Book, and Stick tending to vote together, me and Kas ending up on the same person every single cycle (though I think sometimes Kas has voted and stayed while I've joined later, while others Kas has moved back to someone I've voted on). Aman most often votes the same as Kas and I, but also book. So sorta interesting there's sorta [Aman, Kas, Hael] and [TUN, Stick] and Book sorta in the middle. Don't know if there's anything there but take what you want from that.

---

8 hours ago, Kasimir said:

I may have asked this before. Why is TUN an explicit mention for you and not the rest of your Baddish tier? Reads enclosed for reference:

I was listing non-negotiable "Will not votes" based on reasons other than reads - with TUN specifically, I remembered the discussion D2 of the MR in which I chose to N1 TUN, and then people were like "they've just been N1'd the last few games, so someone new would have done that". Figured I didn't what to D1 TUN if I'd just N1'd him. I don't mention Nerdy or Wiz there. Nerdy, as I mention in a later post that cycle, I wouldn't vote for being new. Honestly don't know why I didn't mention Wizard. Best I can suggest was a sense of comradery having just been evil buddies with them last game.

---

7 hours ago, Kasimir said:

TBH the more I argue with TUN the more I feel he's Village, and that worries me. I do feel E!TUN tends to be somewhat - detached.

See, I feel the opposite - makes me feel worse about them - why are they arguing more about Stick's idea than Stick? And with a weird view of the mechanics of the Winzik. If anything I can't help but wonder if the elim doc had a different idea of what to expect from the Winzik which is fuelling their perspective as they argue.

14 hours ago, _Stick_ said:

Except Hael posted a meme and so knew Nerdy wouldn't die. But. Maybe he was really really convinced of IC!xino and wanted him dead twice. OH! Perhaps the elims shot xino anyway because they were uncertain of what the Winzik vote powers could do to the exe? Again, this means they were confident about xino being IC. Possible that they thought this would end the game. 

The meme was about my thoughts on Mat(t). There'd been 5 votes on Nerdy for most of the cycle. I'd voted for Xino, being more sus of them than Nerdy, but had resigned myself to the fact that we weren't getting a Xino execution. So when Mat(t) suddenly changes his vote so that Xino goes through, it was good news! Except, after the chaos of C2, and concerns about elim action, I didn't know if the very fact Mat(t) was moving was because they were an elim choosing to save their buddy last minute. I thought it unlikely, so didn't last minute change my vote in case, and so instead went to the effort of locating the image. I knew I probably had that image somewhere, but it doesn't appear like that in the webcomic itself. I went and checked the book of the maxim sayings from the webcomic, but that only shows the text. Then I remembered they'd done calendars with the maxims on top of backgrounds, so I dug through my OneDrive to find the calendar so I could screensnip the relevant page to share. While I suppose it was half an hour, I was wasting my time by working out how to find and upload a meme. 

Anyway, Xino kill doesn't end the game while there's still two people in the IC doc, so being confident on that fact doesn't make sense. And worries of Winzik powers only matter if you think there's a chance of them being employed. If you're monitoring who's on and your Winzik candidate is offline, unless you think they would have already put some in unecessarily, the change isn't really going to be a concern. 

Nah, I continue to think that it was a matter of the relevant player not being online to react to the last half hour with the change of the vote, though I'm still not sure why Xino was a target anyway, unless they hadn't seen Xino become a candidate.

EDIT:

While I think when I checked at the time, TUN had be on within 6 hours of the end of cycle, at least as far as posts on the shard full stop, his last post in C4 was half an hour before Infinite and Kas put the second and third votes on Xino. And their next post on the shard was 20 hours later. So while it's close, it's not infeasible they didn't pay attention to the game. Which means in a <TUN/Stick> or <TUN/Almond> world, you end up with a kill placed 6 hours before end of cycle that seems a safe choice, only to have that turned around on your by the end of cycle, without your notice. 

Edited December 24, 2022 by Haelbarde

[Haelbarde]

Seeing as this is presumably my last chance to do so, may as well update the vote trackers for you:

Green = SDPS Member (Village Boring)
Blue = Inner Circle Member (Village Trust Group)
Red = Spy

Vote Tallies

Spoiler

Cycle One
(6) Danex: JNV, Bookwrym, Silvereye, Hael, Aman, Kas
(3) Kas: Danex, Nerdy, Xino
(1) Mat(t): Fifth
(1) Stick: Mat(t)
(1) Fifth: Devo

Cycle Two
(5) Silvereye: Wizard, Devo, Hael, Stick, Kas
(3) Aman: Infinite, Fifth, Mat(t)
(3) Nerdy: Xino, Bookwyrm, Aman
(2) Xino: Exotic, Nerdy
(1) Szeth: TUN

Cycle Three
(5) Fifth: TUN, Stick, Exotic, Bookwyrm, Mat(t)
(4) Xino: Nerdy, Kas, Devo, Hael
(2) Aman: Fifth, Aman

Cycle Four
(5) Xino: Aman, Infinite, Kas, Hael, Mat(t)
(4) Nerdy: Stick, Xino, TUN, Bookwyrm

Cycle Five
(6) Nerdy: Bookwyrm, TUN, Mat(t), Kas, Stick, Hael, Infinite, Aman
(1) Stick: Exotic
(1) Aman: Nerdy

Cycle Six
(5) Hael: Stick, Bookwyrm, TUN, Kas, Infinite
(2) TUN: Hael, Aman

Vote Tallies (Detailed)

Spoiler

Cycle One
(0) Devo: Kas {1}
(0) Aman: Hael {1}
(4) Kas: Danex {1}, Nerdy {1}, Kas {3}, Xino {1}
(0) Hael: TUN {1}
(4) Danex: Kas {2}, Stick {1}, Aman {1}, JNV {1}, Bookwrym {1}, Silvereye {1}, Hael {2}, Aman {4}, Kas {4}
(1) Mat(t): TUN {2}, Fifth {1}, Aman {2}
(0) Wizard: Aman {3}
(1) Stick: Mat(t) {1}
(1) Fifth: Devo {1}

Night Killed: JNV

Cycle Two
(2) Xino: Kas {1}, Exotic {1}, Nerdy {1}, Fifth {2}
(0) Hael: Stick {1}, Aman {1}, Fifth {4}
(0) Bookwyrm: Kas {2}
(5) Silvereye: Stick {2}, Kas {3}, Wizard {1}, Aman {5}, Devo {1}, Fifth {1}, Hael {1}, Stick {5}, Kas {5}
(0) Devo: Aman {2}, Aman {4}
(0) Fifth: Aman {3}, Stick {4}
(3) Aman: Mat(t) {1}, Infinite {1}, Fifth {3}, Fifth {5}, Mat(t) {3}
(3) Nerdy: Mat(t) {2}, Xino {1}, Bookwyrm {1}, Aman {6}, Kas {4}
(0) TUN: Stick {3}
(1) Szeth: TUN {1}

Night Killed: Wizard

Cycle Three
(2) Aman: Mat(t) {1}, Fifth {1}, Aman {2}, Kas {3}, Exotic {1}, Stick {1}, Aman {3}
(0) Mat(t): Aman {1}
(5) Fifth: Kas {1}, TUN {1}, Stick {2}, Exotic {2}, Bookwyrm {1}, Mat(t) {2}
(4) Xino: Kas {2}, Nerdy {1}, Kas {5}, Devo {1}, Hael {2}
(0) Nerdy: Kas {4}, Hael {1}

Night Killed: Devo

Cycle Four
(0) Aman: Mat(t) {1}, Aman {1}
(5) Xino: Kas {1}, Aman {2}, Infinite {1}, Kas {3}, Hael {1}, Mat(t) {4}
(4) Nerdy: Stick {1}, Xino {1}, TUN {1}, Bookwyrm {1}, Mat(t) {3}
(0) TUN: Kas {2}, Mat(t) {2}

Night Killed: Xino

Cycle Five
(7) Nerdy: Stick {1}, Bookwyrm {1}, Nerdy {1}, TUN {1}, Aman {2}, Mat(t) {4}, Kas {3}, Stick {3}, Hael {1}, Infinite {1}, Aman {4}
(0) TUN: Kas {1}, Mat(t) {1}, Mat(t) {3}
(0) Hael: Stick {2}, Kas {2}, Aman {1}
(1) Stick: Mat(t) {2}, Exotic {1}
(1) Aman: Nerdy {2}
(1) Archer: Aman {3}

Cycle Six
(0) Archer: Aman {1}
(0) Szeth: Kas {1}
(0) Stick: Aman {1}
(2) TUN: Stick {1}, Aman {2}, Stick {3}, Hael {1}, Aman {5}
(5) Hael: Stick {2}, Stick {4}, Aman {4}, Bookwyrm {1}, TUN {1}, Kas {1}, Infinite {1}
(0) Kas: Aman {3}

Last thing I'll say, if the Winzik or IC are not night killed, consider that with 6 players left, if the in-thread assumption of 2 IC and 2 elims is true, consider using the IC doc to verify each the remaining IC in thread. If elims try and pretend, based on being able to read the doc, the real IC should be able to ID them. While yes, claiming in thread does give the elims their target, there's a chance that depending on who the claimed ICs are, it may help to narrow down the uncertainties on who the last elims are. Maybe it's a little messier in a 1 elim world. Didn't get time to think that through fully. If it's a 1 IC/only the Winzik is alive still, then a claim probs does help. 

@Szeth_Pancakes What happens if the last IC/Winzik and the last Spy die simultaneously?

Edited December 24, 2022 by Haelbarde

[Szeth_Pancakes]

That's time! Rollover should be very short. Like very extremely.

Edit: That's just a draw  @Haelbarde

Edited December 24, 2022 by Szeth_Pancakes

[Szeth_Pancakes]

QF64 Aftermath: The Final Stand

“I don’t care!” Winzik yelled. “I need to get out of the station!”

“I can’t let you do that to yourself, Winzik.” Faela drew their lips into a line.

“You don’t understand! If I stay here, I’m dead!” He kicked his desk for emphasis, harder than he meant to; his exoskeleton broke through its leg, and with a mighty crash, his three monitors all fell to the floor, glass shattering into a billion tiny pieces. Faela stepped back, eyeing Winzik distrustfully. “Get everyone out of the building,” Winzik said. “Lock all the doors. No one can be in here except me, you, and the guards that helped kill that one human.”

“Are you sure?” Faela asked. “That seems a bit extreme. Winzik, I’m worried about you. You’ve been more and more… aggressive lately.”

“You know what’s extreme?” Winzik said, his voice soft and menacing. “This whole situation. All these spies coming to my station and murdering everyone left and right like they’re just disposable sacks of meat and bone! I won’t stand for it. Not anymore.”

“Winzik, do you really hear yourself right now?” Faela stood.

“Why are you still here?” growled Winzik. “Didn’t I order you to do something?”

“As you wish, boss.” Faela turned and left the room, their expression blank.

Winzik stared at the broken glass beneath his feet. He was a dead man, no matter what he did. But it couldn’t hurt to try, could it? To try to get to them before they got to him.

He paced the room, muttering to himself. Who were the spies? They had to have at least one person in the SDPS; someone close to Winzik. One of his higher-up subordinates, Hal Vanicus, had had some kind of viral infection over the past week. His voice had been raspier than usual. Perfect cover for a spy. He typed a message on his wristpad. That would send the order to Faela, who would alert the guards; they would then execute the man quickly and painlessly.

A thought hit Winzik like a blow to his faceplate. If the spies wanted to impersonate someone close to him, who would they pick? Who was the one person he trusted with all of his secrets? Who was the one person that had been adamant about him staying here, where he was in constant danger?

The floor beneath Winzik started to shake. Pieces of glass leapt from the floor in small arcs, making small clinking noises against his exoskeleton. Delver! The pieces all came together in his head. He had to warn the station; to evacuate–

“Hello, Winzik.”

He turned to find Faela standing in the doorway behind him. The dione bared their teeth and a hologram dissipated around them to reveal…

“You’re a human?” asked Winzik. He hadn’t expected himself to be duped so easily by one of them. Ever since he’d gotten rid of Brade, he’d sworn to not let one of the scourge into his life ever again.

“Sure am.” The creature had dark brown skin and black hair that it’d styled in a braided ring around the top of her head. “Jeshua Wight, National Assembly.”

“Is this your work?” Winzik asked, pointing at the shaking ground. It was getting worse; the glass shards flew higher and higher into the air, dancing around each other and glimmering in the air. The human looked like it was having trouble keeping its balance.

“Partly.” She shrugged, grinning. “I’ve waited so many years for this moment. To face the leader of the krell and… well, I’m getting ahead of myself, aren’t I?” She shook her head. “The children wanted to call this whole thing off. I am so glad I didn’t listen to them.”

“Hear me out,” said Winzik in what he hoped was a reasonable tone. “I’m sure we can come to some sort of… mutual ag-”

“Y’know,” the human said, cutting Winzik off, “it’s funny how you call us aggressive. As far as I can tell, you’re the one who’s been aggressive this week. Murdering everyone left and right like they’re just disposable sacks of meat and bone. That’s you, Winzik.” The human pointed its appendage at him, walking closer, glass crunching beneath its shoes. “That’s always been you.” It drew a blaster, pointed it at his faceplate, and fired.

-----

Haelbarde was executed! They were an SDPS Member!

Stick was killed! They were Winzik!

The Spies (Just A Silvereye, The Unknown Novel, The Bookwyrm, and InfiniteInsanity) are victorious!

 

Vote Count

Hael (5): Stick, Bookwyrm, TUN, Kas, Infinite
TUN (2): Hael, Aman

 

Links

QF64 writeups / QF64 elim doc / QF64 dead doc / QF64 inner circle doc / QF64 Spreadsheet

 

Player List

Spoiler

1. JNV  - Jennal, a Tenasi diplomat - Inner Circle Member

2. The Wandering Wizard - Adding Fuel to the Fire, a figment who smells like smoke - SDPS Member

3. ookla the gastrointestinal / Dannnnnex - SDPS Member

4. The Unknown Novel - delver - Spy

5. Kasimir - Illvin Karrde - SDPS Member

6. Just A Silvereye - John Johnson, an off-duty pilot - Spy

7. _Stick_ - Winzik

8. The Bookwyrm - Hiari, a Kitsen diplomat - Spy

9. xinoehp512 - Doncie Black, a rogue human wearing a hologram - SDPS Member

10. NerdyAarakocra - Bob McFondue, a licensed human owned by a Superiority politician - SDPS Member

11. Devotary of Spontaneity - Kalli, [redacted], and [redacted], a Dione - Inner Circle Member

12. InfiniteInsanity - Spy

13. Haelbarde - Hal Vanicus - SDPS Member

14. ExoticAlmond - SDPS Member

15. Matrim's Dice - SDPS Member

16. Fifth Scholar - Ëarendil, brightest of mariners - SDPS Member

17. Amanuensis - self - SDPS Member

 

I'll post my thoughts in a bit after I'm done writing an article for my school newspaper. tl;dr: it's all Araris's fault.

(for legal reasons that was a joke)

Edited December 24, 2022 by Szeth_Pancakes

[Haelbarde]

RIP

GG WP.

I'm glad that Aman, Kas, and Stick were indeed all village. 

Well done TUN for always just hovering out of the most pressing person to go after. Feels like the whole game then, the village was just devouring itself with little guidance, given the low activity of all the elims. We just got unlucky and didn't go after the right low actives. Ah well.

Time to read some docs  

EDIT: I approve of the plotting of potential outcomes based on who flips when  Very me. 

Seems I was right then with the Xino kill being a matter of TUN missing the mark.

Edited December 24, 2022 by Haelbarde

[Fifth Scholar]

A little AG2 reminder is always in order. Can’t discount the lower active folks for their low activity. Well trolled, Szeth and Araris, and well played to the Elims for keeping your heads down. In hindsight basically all my initial gut reads were on point but they were so improbable that I ignored them anyways  

Many of my thoughts are in the dead doc re: distro, but in future I think having a bigger IC/elim ratio is important under this setup. Otherwise I can’t really complain—in the end, we were outnumbered fair and square. RIP the village analysts screaming their heads off. Should’ve looked at TUN more closely off the Silver flip. 

Also, this is in the dead doc but I am re-upping it nonetheless  

Quote

Hopefully this game doesn’t give all of us nightmares going forward >>

Edited December 24, 2022 by Fifth Scholar

[Haelbarde]

Regarding the balance of the game. It quickly turned out that the best strategy for everyone involved was to just not mention the IC and the Winzik in thread, and for the doc to not be active. Which is not at all ideal, because it's a cool idea. I think it's always going to be in the village's interest to not mention it in thread, and you're not likely going to change that. If PMs are allowed, that changes things. But it also opens up the potential for the IC to make contact with other villagers privately and grow the trust group, which runs into the issues with village trust groups. Fixing the ability for the IC to speak though would be a worthwhile first step. Looking at the docs, one of the biggest issues was the tracking timing of Shard activity versus doc activity. I would wonder about instead of elim access to the live doc, instead the elims get access to all of last cycles discussion in a separate doc at the start of each cycle. That way there is no timing information available to them, and they can't immediately react to things. This is sorta how PM spying works in KKC for example. It does open the potential the IC to ID each other based on timing information without the Elims knowing, but I think that's sort of interesting - they get to know who is safe in thread, but have to be careful to not show it, else the elims use that to ID each other. 

[Mat]

As funny as it is that the analysis powerhouse of me/Stick/Kas/Aman/Fifth/Devo/Hael did utterly nothing, it is hard to do analysis when virtually only villagers post >> Though that isn’t entirely fair when we all just read Bookwyrm village  Massive props to your C3/4; whenever it was when you posted most and were ever so pure.

Aman, soooooo glad I rethought you and landed on the right read. Stick, am also glad Kas convinced me to stop tinfoiling you.

I think even though we really just were ran around in circles by ourselves, looking back on those last few cycles during those hours where it was just villagers trying to solve, no elims messing with it like we were so worried about it, after I’d gotten over most of my paranoia… I had fun. It was fun trying to work it out, and failing  So thanks, guys. And thanks Szeth for running the game!

Though, Szeth, I might want to have some words about making there be more elims than ICs :P. Though I already know you’re aware of that maybe being a problem.

But yeah when all was said and done the elims just won so GGs  

[Haelbarde]

@Szeth_Pancakes Thanks for the game. I actually had a lot of fun, and ended up more active and engaged than normal  It was an interesting problem to attempt to solve if nothing else, if it maybe didn't run quite as you intended, based on the tags?

[Mat]

Oh yeah— @Szeth_Pancakes did you say there was a distro with me/Fifth/Aman as evil, or something close to that? Why on earth didn’t you do that one?  That would have been awesome

Edit: @Devotary of Spontaneity I absolutely love your IC doc persona, excellent job with that xD

Edit2: @Ookla the Unknown I love the memes, btw  

Edited December 24, 2022 by Matrim's Dice