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Long Game 75: Alethi Politics


Mat

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The usual festive air at the feast that night was notably subdued as Telanah stepped past Wit, ignoring his jibe at her appearance. She'd heard rumors of Highprince Hatham's distant relation being murdered, but it seemed to have more of an effect on the crowd than she'd have expected. It wasn't like he had been all that important, after all. True, he was third dahn and a highlord, but not a prince or anything. There were enough highlords that the death of one wouldn't be significant.

Or so she'd thought.

There was something else happening. Something below the surface.

She needed to find out what it was.

Ignoring the food - a mystery was far more interesting than curry, no matter if it had been prepared by the king's own cooks - Telanah started mingling in the crowd. Though she also was of the third dahn, it did not grant her access to all conversations, or even to all islands at the feast. Still, that did not keep her from eavesdropping.

"... right outside their meeting. He hadn't even made it two steps from the door," one man said in tones only he thought were hushed. He must have been a few drinks into the violet wine.

"And no one noticed? They were feet from him, and you're telling me none of the Highprinces heard?" his companion asked, clearly not believing the claim.

"Or they didn't want to hear. Maybe they planned it."

That was interesting. Telanah moved on before they took notice of her lurking nearby and found another group of people. One she could join.

"It's a coup," said one woman whose name Telanah couldn't recall. She was of little importance and quite annoying. Her voice grated on the nerves, but she was usually full of the latest gossip. "I've heard that he had written a note in his own hand that someone was going to try to kill him. Something about a war among the Highprinces."

"That's ridiculous." One of the  men in the group scoffed. "He was a good Vorin man. He wouldn't have written something."

"But he did. I heard it from a woman who's sister is the scribe who read the note to Highprince Kholin. The best part?" The woman glanced over her shoulder, then leaned in with a grin. "It says Highprince Sadeas is responsible."

The group let out a collective gasp. Everyone knew that the tensions between the Kholin and Sadeas families had grown exponentially of late, but no one expected it to escalate beyond political maneuvers. This, though? Murder? That certainly reeked of a coup attempt.

Telanah grinned and glanced at the King's island where he feasted with both Highprinces. The tension was almost visible like static in the air, even from a distance.

This would certainly be an interesting feast. 

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2 hours ago, Quintessential said:

Yeahhhh same here : P

uuhhhhh what

you have the exact same gut read on the exact same two people, both of whom have posted very very little

thats sus

thats very very sus

Edited by Dannex
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7 minutes ago, Illwei said:

I'm just waiting for Danex to hop in with one of those OpinionsTM of his

\/\/

8 minutes ago, Dannex said:

uuhhhhh what

you have the exact same gut read on the exact same two people, both of whom have posted very very little

thats sus

thats very very sus

 

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Cara laughed at the man's joke, though she had absolutely no idea why it was funny. She was a darkeyes again, still trying to figure this whole mess out. Some of the conversations she had eavesdropped upon or even been a part of made no since to her, and that was discouraging. Cara wasn't completely she she knew what she was supposed to be doing. She wished she had some idea of who was loyal and who wasn't, but she had yet to accomplish that feat. Cara knew it had not been long enough to find out much, but she still felt she was failing. Cara did not like to fail.

The man was staring at her. Had he said something? Cara nodded and smiled, the excused herself and fled into the night. She wished she had more experience. This much pretending was starting to ware her down.

 

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So, I feel fairly confident leaving my vote on Archer for now. Like others have already said, the Highprinces all coming out to claim favors the elims far more than it does the village. With all of the Highprinces claimed, they have a significantly smaller pool to look through to try and find any of the important village roles. Like we saw in LG74, a bunch of people claiming can screw over the few people not claiming. Archer asking for the Highprinces to claim very much feels like an elim fishing for info, to me. 

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Araris

I asked Matrim whether highprince names will be revealed upon death, and he said that he didn't tell anyone their highprince names except Dalinar and Sadeas, but he'll reveal them when any highprince dies. @Araris Valerian, why did you fake-claim Ruthar? 

I'm not exactly suspicious of araris just yet, but there's definitely something strange going on here.

Edited by Flyingbooks
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Wait this is possibly a really stupid question but is Elhokar in the Highprince doc? @Matrim's Dice

*cough* @StrikerEZ note that Archer is doing more or less the same thing he got voted out for in the MR just now... when he was village : P

3 minutes ago, Flyingbooks said:

@Araris Valerian, why did you fake-claim Ruthar? 

Presumably as a joke--Araris is notoriously against claiming XD

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2 minutes ago, Quintessential said:

*cough* @StrikerEZ note that Archer is doing more or less the same thing he got voted out for in the MR just now... when he was village : P

I don't bother with meta arguments all that much, but this does feel different, I think. He's more trying to get a whole bunch of people to claim, which narrows down who the non-highprinces are, and that only benefits the elims this game since they're looking for a specific player. I was operating under the assumption that Elhokar wouldn't get the Highprince doc since he's technically not a Highprince, but I could be wrong. @Matrim's Dice Like Quinn asked: would Elhokar be in the doc? Either way, knowing who all the Highprinces are either lets the elims look for Elhokar in the other players or in the Highprinces themselves, both of which are bad. I think keeping it all anonymous is for the best, because the elims really want to get Elhokar out of the way. They can't really win until he's dead. Even reaching parity when Elhokar's alive doesn't get them the win, I'm pretty sure. And not only that, if they know who all the Highprinces are, they can look at the other players and try and figure out if there's an assassin and take them out.

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20 minutes ago, Quintessential said:

Wait this is possibly a really stupid question but is Elhokar in the Highprince doc?

 

12 minutes ago, StrikerEZ said:

Like Quinn asked: would Elhokar be in the doc?

Elhokar will not be in the Highprince doc.

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I think you’re exaggerating how much I advocated for claiming, Striker. It wasn’t a suggestion I expected to be implemented, and you’ll note I mentioned how the elims could abuse it. I’m trying to generate discussion, and that seemed like something people could respond to. And by bringing this up, it discourages people from claiming without thinking through the ramifications.

The elims will be watching for claims and trying to figure out who people are in the HP doc. So if you let anything slip, know they’ll record it and use it to help their NK choices.

Let’s do a deep dive for a minute.

We possibly have eight normal highprinces, Dalinar, Sadeas, five general roles (doorman etc) and Elhokar. That’s a total of 16, which is the number of players we have. Depending how he chose to balance it, Mat either went light on the highprinces and doubled up on some general roles, or he handed out one of each, which I think he did. Had he had under 16, he would have dropped highprinces.

So we have a pool of 10 people with one confirmed village role and one confirmed elim role among them, and a pool of 6 people with 1 confirmed villager among them.

Having better read the rules, my guess is now that the elims have Sadeas, a highprince, and two regular roles. It would take too long for them to get a majority and gain control of the HP events scheduling mechanic for that to be an issue. Since this is a game with items and scans and craziness, the elims need extra muscle. I’m thinking they have two regular roles, because that gives them a small advantage. If the game were larger, they would get more HP.

Anyway, if we get every HP to claim, we then have a pool where I think we have two elims, a valuable villager, and three other villagers who are also special and I love you and you’re all great, go team. I can see a world where we just burn through those as exe targets. Split them into three pairs. Put a pair up for exe every day. Watch when the elims are forced to move in to protect their guys. At worst, we only get a kill in C5, then a guaranteed one in C6. That’s better than nothing. Elhokar would die, but if we misexe every cycle, we're gonna die anyway because the elims will eventually take control of the exe and have NKs too. 

Are there problems with this? For sure. But I like seeing people consider it because that tells us about their thinking. Until we get a majority who say it’s a good idea (unlikely) I’m sticking to thread/PM safety and staying tight lipped.

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Need to write an essay today, so I'm going to be gone until that's done most likely. But I have Friday off so I won't be completely useless this cycle.

(Also if I do have spare time that will likely go to the game in C5 instead of D1... sorry :P)

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40 minutes ago, Flyingbooks said:

Araris

I asked Matrim whether highprince names will be revealed upon death, and he said that he didn't tell anyone their highprince names except Dalinar and Sadeas, but he'll reveal them when any highprince dies. @Araris Valerian, why did you fake-claim Ruthar? 

I'm not exactly suspicious of araris just yet, but there's definitely something strange going on here.

This wasn't a claim, it was a reminder. I signed up as Ruthar, figuring that the name might actually match in-game identity.

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25 minutes ago, StrikerEZ said:

I don't bother with meta arguments all that much, but this does feel different, I think. He's more trying to get a whole bunch of people to claim, which narrows down who the non-highprinces are, and that only benefits the elims this game since they're looking for a specific player. 

Ah, okay that's fair. And yeah, I agree that having the HPs claim is not a good idea. I'm not sure whether Archer's suggesting it is particularly elimmy, but I also don't think you being sus of it is elimmy :P should I be concerned that for once nobody thinks Striker is sus???

16 minutes ago, Archer said:

Are there problems with this? For sure. But I like seeing people consider it because that tells us about their thinking. Until we get a majority who say it’s a good idea (unlikely) I’m sticking to thread/PM safety and staying tight lipped.

I would say that I like the idea in theory, assuming that everyone publicly agreed to and followed it and that we knew for certain your distro guesses were right. However, I doubt anyone's going to agree to it, and we've (I hope) learned by now not to assume things about distributions XD

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Don't forget that Matrim was like "oh right I don't have to have all 10 Highprinces" so the Elims can totally just not claim and we can't say that they're wrong. or Villagers can not claim. idk. this also doesn't make any sense. uhhhhhhhh

honestly

kinda reading Archer village

Araris basically conftown to me don't question it

Archer town

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Just now, Illwei said:

Don't forget that Matrim was like "oh right I don't have to have all 10 Highprinces" so the Elims can totally just not claim and we can't say that they're wrong. or Villagers can not claim. idk. this also doesn't make any sense. uhhhhhhhh

All the Highprinces who do claim are also perfectly capable of saying how many other Highprinces are in the doc. So no, the elims couldn't just not claim.

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Just now, Quintessential said:

All the Highprinces who do claim are also perfectly capable of saying how many other Highprinces are in the doc. So no, the elims couldn't just not claim.

well

okay I said there were problems okay

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1 hour ago, Flyingbooks said:

Araris

I asked Matrim whether highprince names will be revealed upon death, and he said that he didn't tell anyone their highprince names except Dalinar and Sadeas, but he'll reveal them when any highprince dies. @Araris Valerian, why did you fake-claim Ruthar? 

I'm not exactly suspicious of araris just yet, but there's definitely something strange going on here.

Araris fake-claimed Ruthar before the game began. His player name is Ruthar.

Other than that I don't see anything you could be pointing to... if I'm wrong please enlighten me.

 

Edit: Obviously I need to read all the new stuff before I do anything. I'm sorry.

 

Comment: If we want PMs, we could ask for them in-thread... like this:

Hey Spanreed Operater, please may I have a PM too?

Edited by Tani
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38 minutes ago, Illwei said:

okay I said there were problems okay

Yes, ik and I agree. Just that specific problem isn't one of them.

More pressing concerns:

  • having the HPs claim gives the elims far more information than it gives the village. It narrows the elims' potential-Dalinar pool down to all non-elim HPs, whereas it only narrows the village's Sadeas pool down to all HPs. So, having the HPs claim benefits the elims more in that regard.
  • It also narrows down the elims' potential-Elhokar pool to non-elim non-HPs, at which point they could either burn through them with NKs or have Sadeas scan them all until one comes up vanilla, and then kill that one.
  • I mean, honestly the ideal strat for the elims is to convince the HPs to claim, NK the ones people trust and get the ones people don't trust misexed, and meanwhile scan all the non-HPs until one turns up vanilla, and NK that one.

I think a more practical question would be: is it worth it to ask one of the non-Dalinar HPs to come forward and state how many HPs there are, once they've found out? That way we can have some idea of the distribution of HP to non-HP, without giving the elims too much info about who is and isn't HP (it only narrows the potential-Elhokar pool by 1 person).

The nice thing about it is, they can't even try to sabotage it by lying about the number of HPs; if one of them does, they'd risk another (village) HP claiming with a different number of HPs. If we as a group see differing numbers, all we'd have to do is exe one of them (or tie them) to find out who's lying. So in the long run, lying about the number of HPs requires them to out a member. 

Edit: I had this in my original version of this post and forgot to add it back in after doing the proofreading/formatting: when I read Archer's suggestion originally, it seemed like a good idea because it only had the positives listed specifically. Now that I've gone and written down/worked out the negatives as well, I've changed my mind : P

Edited by Quintessential
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8 minutes ago, Quintessential said:

I think a more practical question would be: is it worth it to ask one of the non-Dalinar HPs to come forward and state how many HPs there are, once they've found out? That way we can have some idea of the distribution of HP to non-HP, without giving the elims too much info about who is and isn't HP (it only narrows the potential Elhokar-pool by 1 person).

ummm this could easily turn into an ikyk game if Dalinar claimed HP and said how many HPs there were... but it probly won't bc Dalinar's likely to not come forward bc of the likelyhood of being exed. I mean, we're gonna kill one of the peeps who disagree about HP number... so yeah.
I think this works. This works really nicely. We should totally do it!

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1 minute ago, Tani said:

ummm this could easily turn into an ikyk game if Dalinar claimed HP and said how many HPs there were... but it probly won't bc Dalinar's likely to not come forward bc of the likelyhood of being exed. I mean, we're gonna kill one of the peeps who disagree about HP number... so yeah.

Right, I figure we would just assume absolutely nothing about the person--we (the general public) can't even necessarily assume they're HP, since the whole elim team will know how many HPs there are, so the claimant could easily be a non-HP elim trying to mislead us about their identity. 

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