Long Game (3)2: Pulling on Strings

[Arrae]

Eh. Not sure if I count as an active player this time of the year. I had been thinking of voting for Drake D2, but I felt that I should focus on someone else, and then mostly forgot about it. Wilson's analysis of Drake lit a fire under my butt and reminded me that hey, I'd been planning to vote on Drake.

[TheMightyLopen]

1 hour ago, Arraenae said:

Eh. Not sure if I count as an active player this time of the year. I had been thinking of voting for Drake D2, but I felt that I should focus on someone else, and then mostly forgot about it. Wilson's analysis of Drake lit a fire under my butt and reminded me that hey, I'd been planning to vote on Drake.

Fair enough. I think I am leaning village for you anyways.

I've thought about it, and I'm putting my vote on Rand. He's been one of my top guesses for the Inquisitor for a while, and even if he's not the Inquisitor, he's a good target for conversion IMO. I know I haven't given great reasoning on this, but honestly, it's mostly a feeling I'm getting from his posts. Like he's hiding something. I'll try and go over his posts and put my suspicion of him into a more solid argument later, but no promises.

We really need more people to vote and, well, post something. If no one else does it, I'll post a list of who hasn't posted or voted this Cycle and ping them in a while.

[Ecthelion III]

I agree with Lopen, Randuir has also seemed a bit suspicious. Then again I don't have much to compare him against.

[Araris Valerian]

I'm going to vote on HH. I don't have strong feelings about anyone else up for a lynch, and discussion isn't great. I'm also too busy to generate my own discussion currently.

@Ecthelion III, you've voted now, but you didn't answer my question. What is your interpretation of the previous day's events?

Edited April 6, 2017 by Araris Valerian

[Elenion]

@Ecthelion III You forgot to retract your vote on HH before voting on Rand.

 

After Ecth retracts that vote, here's what the vote situation will be:

Ecthelion (0): Jon

HH (2): Kipper, Araris, Ecth

Magestar (1): Len

Iamspartacus (1): Rand

Metacognition (1): Hero

Rae (1): Arin

Rand (2): Lopen, Ecth

[TheMightyLopen]

Inactivity for this Cycle:

@Darkness Ascendant - could you explain the meaning for your "Heh. :)" post?

@Magestar - has not posted this Cycle. Please don't go inactive. :/

@Silverblade5 - also has not posted.

@little wilson surprisingly absent.

@OmeGaster - has not posted. The Ja calls upon you. Will you answer?

@Bugsy6912 - has not posted.

@Figberts - has not posted.

@Mark IV - has not posted. The Ja is disappointed...probably? >>

@Manukos - has not posted.

@Aonar Faileas - has not posted.

And that's all of them. Spar and Meta have been pinged already, so I don't think I need to ping them as well. If you're busy, fine, but if you can, a small post is better than nothing.

Praise the Ja.

[Darkness Ascendant]

3 minutes ago, TheMightyLopen said:

@Darkness Ascendant - could you explain the meaning for your "Heh. :)" post?

I had written something up. Posted it. Realised it was a stupid move. Decided to just go Heh...:) in case someone had seen it.

[DeTess]

So, prepare yourselves for the most comprehensive put-down of unfounded suspicions in the history of SE.

*Actually reads through Lopen's posts*

Okay, nevermind.

8 hours ago, TheMightyLopen said:

Fourth vote is Randuir.  A couple things about Randuir's accusations against Drake seem a little strange to me. For one, Drake voted during the Night, which to me, really doesn't seem like something the Inquisitor would do, since they'll be focused on killing/converting during the Night. I would think that would be somewhat telling that Drake was a villager, but no one else seemed to think of that either, so I guess I shouldn't think too much of it.

I don't think voting when the vote isn't open is a mistake only villagers commit, as it is a simple case of mistaken cycle order. If Drake had been teh inquisitor, he migt even have put in a kill order at the end of D1 because he genuinely thought we where dealing with single-part cycles.

Also, are you saying that you expect the inquisitor to not be very active during the night cycles because he would be busy deciding who to kill and/or convert?

8 hours ago, TheMightyLopen said:

Next is when Randuir pointed out Drake was defending himself pretty strongly from the questions about whether he was a Rioter or not. If someone said they thought I was a specific Misting, I'm pretty sure I'd deny it as much as I could and try to prove them wrong if they were wrong, since admitting you're a Misting in the thread will very likely end with your death. Even if you are proven to be a villager because of your role, it's not much good if you die soon after. So I don't know what Rand thought was suspicious about this. That's pretty much all I can analyse of him for now.

I did try to explain more about why I thought it was odd in a later post, as Wilson pointed this out as well. However, I agree that this was probably the weakest part of my reasoning. I'd like to think that if I was actually the inquisitor or convert, I'd play more cautiously in the early game to avoid such mistakes, but that isn't an excuse, as I should be doing the same as a villager to avoid unfounded suspicion.

Lastly, I'm not sure how likely I am to be recruited. The reason being that Lopen and jondesu had some well-founded reasons to keep a close eye on me, so I'd expect the inquisitor to avoid recruiting someone with that kind of scrutiny on them.

I'm going to do a quick analysis of the posts of HH, Magestar and Ecthelion. If I have time, I'll get to the suspects of Lopen's list as well (as well as a quick reevaluation of Lopen himself). this will be edited in or put in a new post.

[manukos]

Sooo i've been meaning to post the past two cycles ... But i didnt , i dont rly have a reason , as to everithing that happened while i was gone , i am not rly happy that we havent found a single spiked at least , the tineye post sounds interesting but i dont see what it can truly accomplish

As for suspitions i went through every post of the last two "days" and i think that i would had voted for drake as well , a shame he was a villager , and i agree that HH seems suspicious , but he always gives me that vibe, (even in the last game where we where paired up ) other than him i dont realy know randuin or elenion perhaps 

[DeTess]

So, @Hemalurgic_Headshot

HH has been doing a decent amount of RP in the early stages of the game. I'd like to note that, like in LG31, there seem to be 3 of him, so I'm wondering if that is some kind of theme. It's not particularly important to the issue at hand, however. He did make some comments in D1 that looked like discussion, but had very little actual content, being either a summary of what had happened, or something really quite obvious.

In D2, HH mentions the important of making plans, but he doesn't really contribute on the plan-making front himself. He also bandwagons onto Drought, but seeing that bandwagoning seems to be usual for him, that'snot particularly alignment indicative (though still a bad habit).

On D3, he joins a bandwagon on Araris. I find this odd, not because of the bandwagoning, but because of the target. Yes, Wilson seems to be a rather respected player and initiated this by placing a vote on Araris. However, she stated int he post that the vote was meant more as a prod to be more active, so I can't really see why HH decided to go here.

None of His D4 posts have been particularly alignment indicative either. Anyway, I'm still reading Neutral on HH, though I'm starting to lean slightly elim.

Next up, @Magestar.

Magestar hasn't been posting much outside of Day 1. His posts haven't been particularly alignment indicative, though the elim(if the elim was responsible for the kills, and I see little reason why it could have been a coinshot) seems to have taken his advice on killing random people. In a way, this reminds me a bit of QF22, in which mage wasn't terribly active either, and was proven to be an elim in the end. However, mage did get at least a single post in each day on QF22, so I think his lack of posting this game is genuine inactivity, rather than an elim trying to hide. Neutral read on mage.

Right, last on the list is @Ecthelion III.

He's been doing a bit of RP (which reminds me, I should put up some RP as well again, if I get the time), and voted on Mark, with no direct reason given. When he got called on this, he was quite forthcoming with reasoning, however. In the first night he is accused of being a rioter, but deflects this, and passes that particular ball on to Drake. His logic seems sound (though, of course, Drake was later proven to not be the rioter).

His activity then seemed to drop a bit, but he's already commented on that, so I'm not going to go into that. What I do find interesting is his comment against the bandwagoning that has been going on, which he has used to justify a vote against Elenion. The reason I'm bringing this up is that his vote on me,as  it is currently formulated, seems rather bandwagony. Therefore, Ecthelion I'd like to hear some more justification than just "I'm with Lopen" regarding your vote on me. I'm not yet particularly suspicious(Neutral, actually) of Ecthelion, so I'll hold on on voting for him until I've seen more of his justification (or a lack of said justification).

[Magestar]

1 hour ago, TheMightyLopen said:

@Magestar - has not posted this Cycle. Please don't go inactive. :/

This is probably going to be my last SE game for a bit.   It's getting to the time of year where I'm going to be very busy, and I honestly just don't have the time.  

I'd love not to go inactive...  but I really don't have anything to say about the game, either.  I've bee paying attention, to some extent, but I don't have time to make a detailed analysis.

I'm somewhat suspicious of Lopen, partially because just a quick read through of the cycles made me feel like he's being a little off.  Maybe a bit forced.  Idk.  Definitely gut read, not a lot more.

5 hours ago, Elenion said:

Magestar (1): Len

You can tell I've really been inactive when I don't realize I've been voted on until I look for a vote tally.  -sigh-

Anyway, I hate myself for being this inactive, but I think this game is proving to me that I don't have time for SE these days.  Sorry guys.  Deal with me as you will.

[Mark IV]

On 05/04/2017 at 3:34 AM, OrlokTsubodai said:

Ignore this. Phone is not cooperating. >.> 

So, I just got on to say that I'll not be active until the next day turn, because well, I have my exams on right now, and as usual, the hardest subject is the last. So, yeah. I'll be on from Saturday. 

@TheMightyLopen, the Ja is not disappointed. Do not fret.

Praise the Ja!

[Hemalurgic Headshot]

I haven't been focusing enough here to go in depth to the extent of finding incriminating evidence, and my gut reads are all neutral. Rand, I could vote on you to save my skin, but I have no reason otherwise. Jondesu had a lineup for possible elims he is looking through, and he had listed Rand IIRC, but besides the thoughts of others, Rand is neutral to me.

I could vote on myself (just going through the accusations), but everyone hates when that happens. 

I could vote on Lopen, and I am slightly suspicious of him, but I am usually suspicious of Lopen. I don't have anything to back that up. 

And that was literally the kind of post Rand described I make. Seems like a lot of discussion, but with little actual content. I'll try to check in and vote later today.

[Yitzi2]

On 4/5/2017 at 2:04 AM, Ecthelion III said:

Basic vote analysis (spoilered for size; not much to see):

For future vote analyses, we should probably also note where conversions happen.

13 hours ago, TheMightyLopen said:

Second vote is Wilson, who is pretty much cleared of being the Inquisitor

How so?  The Inquisitor can probably riot/soothe, and her confirmed action was after the Inquisitor gave up uber-steel.

Speaking of which: Since the Inquisitor can probably riot/soothe, it's still probably in our interests to make sure that the vote winner is winning by enough that rioting/soothing won't affect it...and I certainly want to vote so that any rioters/soothers can (if they wish) determine that I am not smoking (assuming that the two enemy smokers don't target me), so I will vote for Randuir.

[DeTess]

So, I said I'd cover the rest of Lopen's suspicions as well, being Len, Rae and Hero, as well as Lopen himself.

Let's get started with Elenion. A couple of others have already talked about him, so I'll try to keep this very short. His posts and playstyle do remind me of how he played in QF22, when I was his partner. There's nothing particularly indicative of him being an elim, so I've got him listed tentatively as village.

*We now take a break to deal with a Ninja*

3 minutes ago, Yitzi2 said:

Speaking of which: Since the Inquisitor can probably riot/soothe, it's still probably in our interests to make sure that the vote winner is winning by enough that rioting/soothing won't affect it...and I certainly want to vote so that any rioters/soothers can (if they wish) determine that I am not smoking (assuming that the two enemy smokers don't target me), so I will vote for Randuir.

I agree about not wanting vote manip. However, why do you pick me over HH?

*We'll be back with our regular programming in a bit*

Edit: Anyway, we where looking at Rae. She's posted a bunch of times, but there is not one post I can point to and say 'that completely reveals her alignment'. I'm getting a bit of a villager vibe from her, but I can't point to exactly where it's coming from, so don't take my word for it.

On to Hero. I've talked about mys suspicions of him before, but he made a good point regarding the idea to have everyone vote and then use the vote manips as a kind of seeker. It's not a perfect system, as the converts might have smoked random people for the exact purpose of making them look suspicious, and we can't completely rule out the presence of more village smokers. However, it is a plan, which is more than I've seen most people come up with (outside of the secretive group of confirmed villagers of that one tineye).

That's it for this post. It's a lot shorter than I've been before, but I've had an exam and a bit of lack of sleep to deal with today. I'll get to Lopen in a bit.

Edited April 6, 2017 by randuir

[Herowannabe]

I should note that I didn't come up with the plan, someone else did (I'm on mobile and still sick so I'm not going to go searching for who). I just reemphasized and clarified it a bit. 

[DeTess]

1 minute ago, Herowannabe said:

I should note that I didn't come up with the plan, someone else did (I'm on mobile and still sick so I'm not going to go searching for who). I just reemphasized and clarified it a bit. 

Yeah, I just found out when I was going over Lopen's posts. I believe I've mentioned I'm not at my best right now.

Edit: the fact that you bothered to point that out means I'm keeping you at tentatively village. If I don't get lynched, I'll take a longer look at your posts.

 

Edited April 6, 2017 by randuir

[little wilson]

4 hours ago, TheMightyLopen said:

@little wilson surprisingly absent.

Eh, this is about the level of activity I had Cycle 2 as well. Cycle 3 fell on a weekend for me, where I generally have more free time, if I find something interesting (as the little debate with Drake was). Weekdays, however, I work full-time and while I can usually keep up with the thread at work, I can't really spend time posting, and if my time after work is taken (as it always is on Tuesday and happened to be yesterday), I'll just naturally be less active.

Additionally, I didn't really have much to say because it's not really going to be terribly helpful for me to say that I'm paranoid of all of my PM contacts, thanks to the second conversion. On that subject, though, I'm nearly certain one of them was converted last night. Not because they're talking to me but more because of who they are. I've also seen practically nothing from any of them to give me any reason to trust them this cycle.

 

34 minutes ago, Yitzi2 said:

How so?  The Inquisitor can probably riot/soothe, and her confirmed action was after the Inquisitor gave up uber-steel.

True. But I rather imagine that the Inquisitor has better things to do than using a rioting/soothing action every day/night. Bronze, for example, would be rather considerably better, to find those Mistings that the Inquisitor needs to kill to convert. Smokers aren't exactly as useful as Coinshots, after all.

I rather think the Inquisitor and the first convert are relatively new. This is based entirely on the results of last night. The Ornstein kill and giving up Ubercopper. This isn't the work of an R&R (regular and recurring) player. Most players from at least Mark and before (and possibly a few even more recent than Mark) wouldn't kill someone who is even partially active fairly early in their first game, even if they're trying to mess with reads and make it hard to predict their kills. Ornstein was less active but he wasn't completely inactive. Most of the R&R players leave brand new players alone until at least mid-game unless there's a very good reason not to (on that note, I would suggest any seeker to scan OmeGaster, since Ornstein and OmeGaster know each other IRL and that could've been a reason for the kill, though I doubt it. It's the only actual reason I can think of).

Then there's giving up Ubercopper. 

General thought process for a newer player: UberCopper only does this one thing, which sure is cool and kind of useful, but now I have this convert who's a Smoker, so I don't really need cover for myself since they can protect me, and anyway, look at all of these other cool abilities I want to use them all. *gives up UberCopper*

Thought process of most R&R players: UberCopper makes me scan as a Regular Villager and is passive, whereas this convert would have to use an action to cover me, leaving a future teammate open. Additionally, any scan just fails and emotional allomancy fails too, which both reveal smoked players. Sure, these other abilities are fun, but I've got to give them up eventually, and UberCopper protects both my role and my alignment. *gives up something else*

So why is the first convert someone near their experience level? Most Inquisitors are going to convert someone they're comfortable with and are fairly certain they can work well with as their first convert. It's going to be someone they're familiar with, most likely. That's more likely to be someone who started playing around the same time you did. Hero said that I would've been his first convert. I know Mark told Aman that Aman would've been his first convert. That all matches up pretty well with that first conversion conclusion. In terms of player generations (of which there are 9 total so far), Hero and I are from the same generation (Gen 1). Aman and Mark are separated by a single generation (Aman in Gen 5 and Mark in Gen 6). Using myself as an example, I'm not even sure who I would've converted first. I think I would've considered a newer player, but ultimately, I'm pretty sure I would've gone for someone like Kipper (Gen 4) or Aonar (Gen 1). I think most people, when looking for their first convert to work with, would choose someone they are already familiar with.

The second convert is where you're more likely to branch out and go for someone different. Hence why I think the second convert is R&R and thus why I'm suspicious of all of my PM contacts, since any of them would've been perfect second converts.

As for suspicions, right now, I actually agree with Lopen about Rand. I didn't when the cycle first began, but....there's something about his last few posts that are really rubbing me the wrong way. It's almost entirely gut, but one of the lines that particularly triggers me is this: 

5 hours ago, randuir said:

Lastly, I'm not sure how likely I am to be recruited. The reason being that Lopen and jondesu had some well-founded reasons to keep a close eye on me, so I'd expect the inquisitor to avoid recruiting someone with that kind of scrutiny on them.

Everyone has that kind of scrutiny on them. Conversions are inherently an IKYK. I could've been converted last night simply for the reason that most people wouldn't expect me to be converted because I can prove my role so easily. But there are players (not many in this game) who would've converted me because I had a plan in place to prove my role. You'd think the Inquisitor would go after R&R players, because they want experienced advice, right? But that's a good reason not to go for those players, because people expect it. So if not the R&Rs, they'll convert newer players, which can also be expected. The only group of players we can say with a fair bit of certainty haven't been converted are the ones who are completely and totally inactive, like Meta and Spartacus. Because no Inquisitor is going to convert a complete inactive while that person is inactive, no matter who the inactive is, unless they know that the inactive will return shortly. Which we don't have any reason to expect for either of those.

You are literally just as likely to be converted as anyone else, perhaps even more-so, considering how well you apparently did in LG30 (which I don't know; I wasn't really paying attention to that game).

I don't even know what about this line gets me, but I know when I first read it, it sent all kind of red flags waving for me. Those red flags went off again on the post about HH, Mage, and Ecth because all of his reads are neutral, with a slight elim lean on HH. His biggest suspects are merely neutral reads right now? Usually by Cycle 4, villagers have people they're suspicious of. Like, actually suspicious of. Elim-leaning. Not neutral. In fact, generally, they suspect more people than can possibly be evil. Case in point my being suspicious of all of my PM contacts. There are 5 of them and I know not all of them could possibly be evil, but I'm suspicious of them even still. Anyway,  Rand. I know there are already 3 votes on Rand and we wanted to spread votes out more, which this doesn't exactly help, but honestly, with the rioting/soothing we've already got with the our emotional allomancers as it is, I fail to see how exactly we'll know if, when, and where the Inquisitor intervenes and, more importantly, why. It's just as easy to set someone up to screw with the village as it is to save a teammate. However, I do fully encourage making sure as many people as possible vote. I don't care where they vote, just so long as they do.

[DeTess]

6 minutes ago, little wilson said:

I don't even know what about this line gets me, but I know when I first read it, it sent all kind of red flags waving for me. Those red flags went off again on the post about HH, Mage, and Ecth because all of his reads are neutral, with a slight elim lean on HH. His biggest suspects are merely neutral reads right now? Usually by Cycle 4, villagers have people they're suspicious of. Like, actually suspicious of. Elim-leaning. Not neutral. In fact, generally, they suspect more people than can possibly be evil. 

Maybe you haven't noticed this yet, but I try to go with something approaching proof before I declare someone's alignment. That is, some contradiction in someone's statements, an overreaction of some sort, or whatever. So I might have suspicions, but until I can actually show something, I can't say I'e got an evilr ead on them. a gut-feeling maybe (on that matter, I've got one about Yitzi2), but until I've gone through his posts U'm disinclined to vote. The only situation when I d'm not looking form something approaching actual proof is when dealing with inactive.

Regarding my comment about suspicion on me, I agree everyone has scrutiny, but both Lopen and Jondesu have mentioned they where going to keep an eye on me specifically, because of my apparent good performance in LG30. Anyway, If this cycle lasted another 24 hours, I could sleep my current state off and make an actually coherent defence, but it seems that won't be the case.

[Araris Valerian]

HH. New vote on Ecthelion, since he is ignoring my pings and refuses to answer my question.

[Mark IV]

My vote lies on Kipper. 

I vote for him based on my PM with him. I have talked to him about it, so he knows why I am suspicious. 

In any case, this will be my last post for the turn (not that I made many :P)

So, Night, Everyone! 

Praise the Ja!

Edit: When I say I talked to him, I mean I have PMed him. He hasn't seen it yet, because well, I sent it just now. 

Edited April 6, 2017 by Mark IV
Praise the Ja! The Ja shall prevail!

[Jondesu]

Mark (not going to bother tagging, since you said you're not posting again), that's...the weakest excuse for a vote I've seen, even more than a gut read. I can't imagine any good reason for that, though it doesn't read Elim to me.

That said, I'm placing my vote back on Ecth. He's continued to just post enough to seem active, but joining a bandwagon on Rand after calling out Len of all people for bandwagoning is absurd. I'm not necessarily clearing Rand either, since you know I've already stated suspicions on him, but this bandwagon on him smells, and I'd rather see Ecth's alignment at the moment.

Edited April 6, 2017 by Jondesu

[DeTess]

Had a nap, didn't feel much better. I think I'm coming down with a cold or something. If I survive, expect somewhat lessened activity for the next day or two.

Anyway, I haven't seen any response yet from either Ecthelion or Yitzi on my request to elaborate further regarding their vote on me, So I'll vote on Ecth, for now. I'm actually slightly more suspicious of Yitzi2, but since no one seems to share that suspicion, I'll go with the vote that at least has a chance to see me survive the lynch. More explanation of my view on ecth can be found above. This'll be my last post today, as I'm now going back to sleep and hopefully wake up feeling better.

[Yitzi2]

7 hours ago, randuir said:

I agree about not wanting vote manip. However, why do you pick me over HH?

My gut says you're slightly more suspicious.  However, now that it's been pointed out that the Inquisitor has better things to do than riot/soothe, I'm thinking maybe it is better not to bandwagon, so that a village rioter/soother can protect themselves.  So randuir  Herowannabe.

(Why Herowannabe, you ask?  Same reason Araris voted for Ecthelion.  Garshin has asked Herwynbe a question twice, and still no answer.)

[Ecthelion III]

Your first rebuttal was fair, Randuir. I hesitate to vote for anyone else without much reasoning (since I have other things to do right now) because I'll probably get voted on again for it.

Guys, how was it a bandwagon if literally one other person had voted so far on that person?? At least in my understanding of the terminology, if one other person votes on a suspect, and I agree and join the vote on that suspect, admittedly with little reasoning, that is not a bandwagon.